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Book.___XI^_2l 
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COi'YRIGHT DEPOSrr. 






WESTWARD HOBOES 




THE SILVER BRACELET, WALPL 



Frontispiece 



WESTWARD HOBOES 



UPS AND DOWNS 
OF FRONTIER MOTORING 



BY 
WINIFRED HAWKRIDGE DIXON 



PHOTOGRAPHS BY 
KATHERINE THAXTER AND ROLLIN LESTER DIXON 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1921 



5" 



.-116 2. 



Copyright, igji, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published October, 1921 



OCT 19 1921 



THE 8CRIBNER PRESS 



0)C!.A624860 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTES PAGE 

I. Westward Ho! i 

II. From New York to Antoine's .... 7 

III. A Long Ways from Home 15 

IV. Chivalry vs. Gumbo 25 

V. Nibbling at the Map of Texas .... 35 

VI. "Down by the Rio Grande" 47 

VII. Sandstorms, Bandits and Dead Soldiers . 60 

VIII. Tucson 74 

IX. Twenty Per Cent Grades, Forty Per Cent 

Vanilla 82 

X. The Apache Trail and Tonto Valley . . 98 ' 

XI. Friday the Thirteenth 121 

XII. Why Isleta's Church Has a Wooden Floor . 148 

XIII. Sante Fe and the Valley of the Rio 

Grande 160 

XIV. Saying GooD-BY TO Bill 190 

XV. Laguna and Acoma 204 

XVI. The Grand Canyon and the Havasupai 

Canyon 220 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVII. From Williams to Fort Apache .... 234 

XVIII. The Land of the Hopis 244 

XIX. The Four Corners 258 

XX. Rainbow Bridge 270 

XXI. The Canyon de Chelley 296 

XXII. North of Gallup 308 

XXIII. On National Parks and Guides .... 326 

XXIV. The Nail-file and the Chippewa . . . 346 
XXV. Homeward Hoboes 358 



VI 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The silver bracelet, Walpi Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Our first camp, Texas 52 

San Xavier Del Bac, Tucson, and the Rapago Indian village 76 

Doorway of San Xavier Del Bac, Tucson 78 

Great rocks seem to float on the stream, mysteriously 

lighted, like Bocklin's isle of the dead 116 

Natural bridge, Pine, Arizona 118 

The church at Isleta 152 

Her bread was baked, delicious and crusty, in the round out- 
door ovens her grandmothers used as far back as B. C. 

or so 154 

Against a shady wall, all but too lazy to light the inevitable 

cigarette, slouches, wherever one turns, a Mexican . . 164 

A Mexican morado, New Mexico 166 

The museum of Santa Fe 166 

Santa Domingo woman 176 

Taos woman 176 

Koshari: rain dance: San Yldefonso 176 

Rain dance, San Yldefonso 178 

Cave dwellings in the pumice walls of Canyon de Los Fri- 

joles, Santa Fe 182 

Artist's studio in Taos, New Mexico 188 

vii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Coronado was the first white man to visit this ancient pueblo 

at Taos, New Mexico i88 

The car sagged drunkenly on one side 200 

Fording a river near Santa F6 200 

On the way to Gallup 200 

Pueblo women grinding corn in metate bins 206 

Pueblo woman wrapping deer-skin leggins 206 

Acoma, New Mexico 212 

Burros laden with fire- wood, Santa Fe, New Mexico . . 212 

At the foot of the trail, Acoma 214 

The enchanted mesa, Acoma, New Mexico 214 

A street in Acoma, New Mexico 218 

The Acoma Mission, New Mexico 218 

In the Grand Canyon of the Colorado 222 

A Navajo maid on a painted pony 222 

The land of the sky-blue water, Havasupai Canyon, Arizona 224 

Horseman in Havasupai Canyon, Arizona 226 

Panorama of Havasupai Canyon, Arizona 228 

Mooney's Fall, Havasupai Canyon, Arizona 232 

A trout stream in the White Mountains, Arizona . . . 240 

The village of Walpi 250 

Oldest house in Walpi 250 

Young eaglet captured for use in the Hopi snake-dance 

ceremonies 254 

Second mesa, Hopi Reservation 256 

A Hotavilla Sybil 256 

viii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Navajo Mountain from the mouth of Segi Canyon . . . 278 

Rainbow Bridge Trail near Navajo Mountain .... 282 

Crossing Bald Rock, on Rainbow Bridge Trail .... 284 

Rainbow Bridge, Utah 286 

Monument country. Rainbow Trail 294 

Rainbow Bridge Trail 294 

Entrance to the Canyon de Chelley 298 

Quicksand; Canyon de Chelley 300 

Near the entrance of Canyon de Chelley, Arizona . . . 302 

Cliff-dwellings, Canyon de Chelley, Arizona 304 

Casa Blanca, Canyon de Chelley, Arizona 306 

Navajo sheep-dipping at Shiprock 312 

Cliff-dwellings, Mesa Verde Park, Colorado 316 

Shoshones at sun dance. Fort Hall, Idaho 322 

A Shoshone teepee, Fort Hall, Idaho 324 

Camping near Yellowstone Park 328 

Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park 330 

Glacier Park, Montana 332 

Blackfeet Indians at Glacier Park, Montana 336 

Two Medicine Lake, Glacier Park, Montana 344 

Wrangling horses. Glacier Park, Montana 344 

A Mormon irrigated village 354 

The "Million Dollar" Mormon Temple at Cardston, Alberta,, 

Canada 354 



IX 



WESTWARD HOBOES 



CHAPTER I 

"westward ho I" 

TOBY'S real name is Katharine. Her grandmother 
was a poet, her father is a scientist, and she is an 
artist. She is called Toby for Uncle Jonas' dog, who 
had the habit, on being kicked out of the door, of running 
down the steps with a cheerful bark and a wagging tail, as 
if he had left entirely of his own accord. There is no 
fact, however circumstantially incriminating, which this 
young doctrinaire cannot turn into the most potent justi- 
fication for what she has done or wishes to do, and when 
she gets to the tail wagging stage, regardless of how re- 
cently the bang of the front door has echoed in our ears, 
she wags with the charm of the artist, the logical pre- 
cision of the scientist, and the ardor of the poet. Even 

when she ran the car into the creek at Nambe 

At the outset we did not plan to make the journey by / 
automobile. Our destination was uncertain. We planned 
to drift, to sketch and write when the spirit moved. But 
drifting by railroad in the West implies time-tables, 
crowded trains, boudoir-capped matrons, crying babies 
and the smell of bananas, long waits and anxiety over 
reservations. Traveling by auto seemed luxurious in 
comparison and would save railroad fares, annoyance 



2 WESTWARD HOBOES 

and time. We pictured ourselves bowling smoothly along 
in the open air, in contrast with the stifling train; we pre- 
visioned no delays, no breakdowns, no dangers; we saw 
New Mexico and Arizona a motorist's Heaven, paved 
with asphalt and running streams of gasoline. An opti- 
mist is always like that, and two are twenty times so. I 
was half-owner of a Cadillac Eight, with a rakish 
hood and a matronly tonneau; its front was intimidating, 
its rear reassuring. The owner of the other half was 
safely in France. At the time, which half belonged to 
which had not been discussed. It is now a burning ques- 
tion. I figure that the springs, the dust-pan, the paint, 
mud-guards and tires constituted her share, with a few 
bushings and nuts thrown in for good measure, but hav- 
ing acquired a mercenary disposition in France, she dif- 
fers from me. 

What I knew of the bowels of a car had been gained, 
not from systematic research, but bitter experience with 
mutinous parts, in ten years' progress through two, four, 
six and finally eight-cylinder motors of widely varying 
temperaments. I had taken no course in mechanics, and 
had, and still have, a way of confusing the differential 
with the transmission. But I love to tinker ! In the old 
two-cylinder days, when the carburetor flooded I would 
weigh it down with a few pebbles and a hairpin, and 
when the feed became too scanty, I would take the hair- 
pin out and leave the pebbles in. I had a smattering 
knowledge of all the deviltry defective batteries, leaky 
radiators, frozen steering-wheels, cranky generators, 
wrongly-hung springs, stripped gears and slipping clutches 
can perpetrate, but those parts which commonly behaved 
themselves I left severely alone. Toby could not drive, 



/ 



"WESTWARD HO!" 3 

but a few lessons made her an apt pupil. She paid her 
money to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for a 
license, and one sparkling evening in early February we 
started for Springfield. We were to cover thirteen thou- 
sand miles before we saw Boston again, — eleven thou- 
sand by motor and the rest by steamship and horseback. 
As I threw in the clutch, we heard a woman's voice 
calling after us. It was Toby's mother, and what she 
said was, "Don't drive at night !" 

In New York we made the acquaintance of a map — 
which later was to become thumbed, torn and soiled. A 
delightful map it was, furnished by the A.A.A., with an 
index specially prepared for us of every Indian reserva- / 
tion, natural marvel, scenic and historical spot along the 
ridgepole of the Rockies, from Mexico, to Canada. Who 
could read the intriguing list of names, — Needles, Flag- 
staff, Moab, Skull Valley, Keams Canyon, Fort Apache, 
Tombstone, Rodeo, Kalispell, Lost Cabin, Hatchita, 
Rosebud, Roundup, Buckeye, Ten Sleep, Bowie and Bluff, 
Winnemucca, — and stop at home in Boston? We were 
bent on discovering whether they lived up to their 
names, whether Skull Valley was a scattered outpost of 
the desert with mysterious night-riders, stampeding steer, 
gold-seekers, cattle thieves and painted ladies, or had 
achieved virtue in a Rexall drugstore, a Harvey lunch- 
room, a jazz parlor, a Chamber of Commerce, an Elks' 
Hall, and a three story granite postoffice donated by a 
grateful administration? Which glory is now Skull Val- 
ley's we do not yet know, but depend on it, it is either one 
or the other. The old movie life of the frontier is not 
obsolete, only obsolescent, provided one knows where to 



4 WESTWARD HOBOES 

look. But the day after it vanishes a thriving city has 
arrived at adolescence and "Frank's" and "Bill's" have 
placed a liveried black at their doors, and provided the 
ladies' parlor upstairs with three kinds of rouge. 

It was love at first sight — our map and us. Pima and 
Maricopa Indians, Zuni and Laguna pueblos, the Rain- 
bow Bridge and Havasupai Canyon beckoned to us and 
hinted their mysteries; our itinerary widened until it 
included vaguely everything there was to see. We made 
only one reservation — we would not visit California. 
California was the West, dehorned; it possessed climate, 
boulevards and conveniences; but it also possessed sand 
fleas and native sons. It was a little thing which caused 
us to make this decision, but epochal. At the San Fran- 
cisco Exposition, I had seen a long procession of Native 
Sons, dressed in their native gold — a procession thou- 
sands strong. Knowing what one native son can do when 
he begins on his favorite topic of conversation, we dared 
not trust ourselves to an army of them, an army militant. 

What we planned to do was harder and less usual. 
We would follow the old trails, immigrant trails, cattle 
trails, traders' routes, — mountain roads which a long 
procession of cliff dwellers, Spanish friars, gold seekers, 
Apache marauders, prospectors. Mormons and scouts had 
trod in five centuries, and left as they found them, mere 
footprints in the dust. The Southwest has been explored 
afoot and on horse, by prairie schooners, burro, and 
locomotive; the modern pioneer rattles his weather 
beaten flivver on business between Gallup and Santa Fe, 
Tucson and El Paso, and thinks nothing of it, but the 
country is still new to the motoring tourist. Because a 
car must have the attributes of a hurdler and a tight- 



"WESTWARD HO!" 5 

rope walker, be amphibious and fool-proof, have a bea- 
gle's nose for half-obliterated tracks, thrill to the tug 
of sand and mud, and own a constitution strong enough 
to withstand all experiments of provincial garage-men, 
few merciful car owners will put it through the supreme 
agony. Had not the roads looked so smooth on the map 
we wouldn't have tried them ourselves. 

And then, in New York, we met another optimist, and 
two and one make three. It was not until long afterward, 
when we met the roads he described as passable, that we 
discovered he was an optimist. He had motored through 
every section of the West, and paid us the compliment of 
believing we could do the same. When he presented us 
with our elaborate and beautiful itinerary he asked no 
questions about our skill and courage. He told us to buy 
an axe and a shovel, and carry a rope. A tent he advised 
as well, and such babes in the woods were we, the idea 
had not occurred to us. 

"And carry a pistol?", asked Toby, eagerly. 

"Never! You will be as safe — or safer than you are 
in New York City." Toby was disappointed, but I heard 
him with relief. By nature gun-shy, I have seen too many 
war-dramas not to know that a pistol never shoots the 
person originally aimed at. The procedure never varies. 
A pulls a gun, points it at B. B, unflinching, engages A 
in light conversation. Diverted, A absent-mindedly puts 
down the gun, which B picks up, shooting to kill. I 
realized that as B my chances were better than as iV, 
for while I would surely fall under the spell of a western 
outlaw's quaint humor and racy diction and thus hand 
over the weapon into his keeping, the chances were that 
he might be equally undermined by our Boston r's, and 



6 WESTWARD HOBOES 

the appeal to his rough Western chivalry which we in- 
tended to make. Toby held out for an ammonia pistol. 
We did debate this for a while, but in the excitement of 
buying our tent we forgot the pistol entirely. 

Our Optimist directed us to a nearby sports'-goods 
shop, recommending us to the care of a certain "Reggi," 
who, he guaranteed, would not try to sell us the entire 
store. Confidently we sought the place, — a paradise 
where elk-skin boots, fleecy mufflers, sleeping bags, leather 
coats, pink hunting habits and folding stoves lure the 
very pocketbooks out of one's hands. We asked for 
Mr. Reggi, who did not look as Italian as his name. He 
proved a sympathetic guide, steering us to the camping 
department. He restrained himself from selling the most 
expensive outfits he had. At the price of a fascinating 
morning and fifty-odd dollars, we parted from him, own- 
ers of a silk tent, mosquito and snake proof, which folded 
into an infinitesimal canvas bag, a tin lantern, which 
folded flat, a tin biscuit baker which collapsed into noth- 
ing, a nest of cooking and eating utensils, which folded 
and fitted into one two-gallon pail, a can opener, a hunt- 
ing knife, doomed to be our most cherished treasure, a 
flashlight, six giant safety-pins, and a folding stove. The 
charm of an article which collapses and becomes some- 
thing else than it seems I cannot analyze nor resist. 
Others feel it too; I know a man who once stopped a 
South American*revolution by stepping into the Plaza and 
opening and shutting his opera hat. 

Only one incident marred our satisfaction with the 
morning's work; we discovered, on saying farewell to 
Reggi, that we had been calling him by his first name I 



CHAPTER II 

FROM NEW YORK TO ANTOINE's 

THERE were, we found, three ways to transport an 
automobile from New»York to Texas; to drive it 
ourselves, and become mired in Southern "gumbo," to 
ship it by rail, and become bankrupt while waiting weeks 
for delivery, or, cheaper and altogether more satisfac-. 
tory, to send it by freight steamer to Galveston. By this 
means we avoided the need of crating our lumbering 
vehicle; we also could calculate definitely its date of ar- 
rival, and by taking a passenger boat to New Orleans, 
and going thence by rail, be at the port to meet it. 

Our baggage we stowed in a peculiarly shaped auto 
trunk containing five peculiarly shaped suitcases, trape- 
zoids all, — not a parallelepiped among them. Made to 
fit an earlier car, in its day it had been the laughing stock 
of all the porters in Europe. Too bulky to be strapped 
outside, it was to become a mysterious occupant of the 
tonneau, exciting much speculation and comment. It was 
to be the means of our being taken for Salvation lassies 
with a parlor organ, bootleggers. Spiritualists with the 
omnipresent cabinet, show-girls or lady shirt-waist drum- 
mers, according to the imagination of the beholder; but 
it never was aught but a nuisance. Whatever we needed 
always reposed in the bottom-most suitcase, and rather 
than dig down, we did without. Next time, I shall know 
better. A three-piece khaki suit, composed of breeches, 

7 



8 WESTWARD HOBOES 

short skirt split front and back, and many-pocketed Nor- 
folk coat, worn with knee-high elk boots, does for daily 
wear in camping, riding or driving. It sheds rain, heat 
and cold, does not wrinkle when slept in, and only mel- 
lows with successive accumulations of dirt. For dress 
occasions, a dark jersey coat and skirt, wool stockings 
and low oxfords is magnificence itself. A heavy and a 
light sweater, two flannel and a half dozen cotton or linen 
shirts, and sufficient plain underwear suflice for a year's 
knocking about. Add to this a simple afternoon frock 
of non-wrinkling material, preferably black, and no event 
finds you unprepared. 

Our trunk made us trouble from the start. The admin- 
istration had given us to understand we might ship it with 
the car, but at the last moment this was prevented by a 
constitutional amendment. Accordingly, an hour before 
our boat left, we took the trunk to the line on which we 
were to travel, and shipped it as personal baggage. It 
was only the first of many experiences which persuaded 
us to adopt the frontiersman's motto, "Pack light." 

Every true yarn of adventure should begin with a sea 
voyage. The wharves with their heaped cargoes tying 
together the four ends of the world, the hoisting of the 
gang-plank, the steamer flirtations, the daily soundings, 
the eternal .schools of porpoises, the menus with their 
ensuing disillusionments, and above all, the' funny, funny 
passengers, each a drollery to all the others, — all these 
commonplaces of voyage are invested by the mighty sea 
with its own importance and mystery. 

On board, besides ourselves, were some very funny 
people, and some merely funny. A swarthy family of 
Spaniards next us passed through all the successive shades 



FROM NEW YORK TO ANTOINE'S 9 

of yellow and green, but throughout they were gay, eating 
oranges and chanting pretty little Castilian folk-songs. 
At table sat a man wearing a black and white striped shirt, 
of the variety known as "boiled," a black and white 
striped collar of a different pattern, and a bright blue 
necktie thickly studded with daisies and asterisks. He 
looked, otherwise, like a burglar without his jimmy, espe- 
cially when we saw him by moonlight glowering progna- 
thously through a porthole. He turned out to be only a 
playwright and journalist, with a specialty for handing 
out misinformation on a different subject each meal. 

The stout lady, the flirtatious purser — why is he of all 
classes of men the most amorous? — the bounder, the 
bride and groom, the flappers of both sexes, the drummer, 
the motherly stewardess and the sardonic steward were 
all present. And why does the sight of digestive anguish 
bring out the maternal in the female, and only profanity 
in the male? Our plump English stewardess cooed over 
us, helpless in upper and lower berths; our steward always 
rocked with silent mirth, and muttered, "My God!" 

Our own stout lady was particularly rare. She ap- 
peared coquettishly the first calm day off Florida, in a 
pink gingham dress, a large black rosary draped promi- 
nently upon her, — which did not much heighten her re- 
semblance to a Mother Superior, owing to her wearing an 
embroidered Chinese kimona and a monkey coat over it, 
and flirting so gayly with the boys. On the Galveston 
train later, we heard her say helplessly, "Porter, my 
trunk is follering me to Gal^'^5ton. How shall I stop it?" 
She could have stopped an express van merely by standing 
in front of it, but we did not suggest this remedy. The 



10 WESTWARD HOBOES 

picture of a docile Saratoga lumbering doggedly at her 
rear was too much for words. 

As to the purser, we left him severely alone. We did 
not feel we could flirt with him in the style to which he 
had been accustomed. 

The last night of the voyage, when the clear bright 
green of the Gulf of Mexico gave place to the turbulent 
coffee color of the Mississippi, our stewardess knocked. 

"On account of the river, miss, we don't bathe to- 
night." It was a small tragedy for us. Earlier in the 
voyage we could not bear to see the water sliding up and 
down in the tub, — so much else was sliding up and down. 
It was on one of those days that the stewardess informed 
us that there were "twenty-seven ladies sick on this deck, 
to say nothing of twenty-four below," and asked us how 
we would like a little piece of bacon. We firmly refused 
the bacon, but the Gilbertian lilt of her remark inspired 
us to composing a ballad with the refrain, "Twenty- 
seven sea-sick ladies we." 

The river which deprived us of our baths presented 
at five next morning a bleak and sluggish appearance. I 
missed Simon Legree and the niggers singing plantation 
melodies, but it may have been too early in the day. Most 
picturesque, busy, low-lying river it was, nevertheless, 
banked with shipyards, newly built wharves, coaling sta- 
tions, elevators, steamship docks — evidences to a provin- 
cial Northerner that the South, wakened perhaps by the 
Great War, has waited for none, but has forged ahead 
bent on her own development, achieving her independence 
— this time an economic independence. To the insular 
Manhattanite, who thinks of New York as the Eastern 
gate of this country, and San Francisco as the Western, 



FROM NEW YORK TO ANTOINE'S ii 

the self-sufficiency, the bustle and the cosmopolitanism 
of the Mississippi's delta land, even seen through a six 
A.M. drizzle, gives a surprising jolt. 

Six months later we were to cross the Mississippi near 
the headwaters not many miles from Canada. More 
lovely, there at the North, its broad, clear placid waters 
shadowed by green forests and high bluffs, it invites for a 
voyage of discovery. 

On both banks of the river, whose forgotten raft and 
steamboat life Mark Twain made famous, are now being 
built concrete boulevards, designed to bisect the country 
from Canada to the Gulf. Huck Finns of the near 
future will be able to explore this great artery through 
what is now perhaps the least known and least accessible 
region of the country. 

New Orleans, those who knew it twenty or forty years 
ago will tell you, has become modern and ugly, has lost 
its atmosphere. Drive through the newer and more pre- 
tentious outskirts, and you will believe all you are told. 
You will see the usual Southwestern broad boulevard, 
pointed with staccato palmettos, but otherwise arid of 
verdure, bordered with large, hideous mansions which 
completely overpower an occasional gem of low-veran- 
dahed loveliness, relic of happier days. For such gran- 
deur the driver of our jitney, — undoubtedly the one used 
by Gen. Jackson during his defence of the city, — had an 
infallible instinct. I don't think he missed one atrocity 
during the whole morning's drive. Yet we passed one 
quite charming "colored" dwelling, — a low rambling cot- 
tage covered with vines, proudly made of glittering, 
silvery tin ! 

But in the old French or Creole quarters you find all 



12 WESTWARD HOBOES 

the storied charm of the city intact, — a bit of Italy, of 
Old Spain, of the milder and sunnier parts of France, 
jumbled together with the romance of the West Indies. 
In the cobbled narrow pavements, down which mule teams 
still clatter more often than motors, the mellow old 
houses, with iron balconies beautifully wrought, broad 
verandahs, pink, green or orange plastered walls, peeling 
to show the red brick underneath, — shady courtyards, 
high-walled with fountains and stone Cupids, glimpsed 
through low arched doorways, markets like those of 
Cannes and Avignon, piled with luscious fruits, crawfish, 
crates of live hens, strings of onions, and barrels of huge 
oysters, — oh, the oysters of New Orleans, — here lies the 
fascination of the town. 

Set down close to the wharves is this jumble of old 
streets, so close that the funnels of docked tramps mingle 
with the shop chimneys. From the wharves drift smells 
of the sea and sea-commerce, to join the smells of the old 
town. It is a subtle blend of peanuts, coffee, cooked food, 
garlic, poultry, — a raw, pungent, bracing odor, inclining 
one to thoughts of eating. And just around the corner is 
Antoine's. 

Eating? There should be a word coined to distinguish 
ordinary eating from eating at Antoine's. The building 
is modest and the lettering plain, as befits the dignity of 
the place. The interior, plainly finished and lined with 
mirrors, resembles any one of five hundred un-noteworthy 
restaurants where business New York eats to get filled. 
There the resemblance stops. A sparkle, restrained and 
sober withal, rests on the mirrors, the glasses and the 
silver. The floors and woodwork have a well scrubbed 
look. The linen is carefully looked after, the china busi- 



FROM NEW YORK TO ANTOINE'S 13 

ness-like ; everything decent, adequate, spotless, — nothing 
to catch the eye. It is not visual aestheticism which lures 
us here, or causes the millionaire Manhattanite to order 
his private car to take him to Antoine's for one hour of 
bliss. Antoine is an interior decorator of subtler but 
more potent distinction. And I would go even farther 
than that New York multi-millionaire whose name spells 
Aladdin to Americans; for such a meal as Antoine served 
us that morning, I would travel the same distance in one 
of those wife-killing contrivances which are the bane of 
every self-respecting motorist. 

The waiters at Antoine's are not hit-or-miss riff-raff 
sent up by a waiters' employment bureau. They are 
grandfatherly courtiers who make you feel that the re- 
sponsibility for your digestion lies in their hands, and for 
the good name of the house in yours. Old New Orleans 
knows them by name, and recognizes the special dignity 
of their priesthood, with the air of saluting equals. Their 
lifework is your pleasure, — the procuring of your inner 
contentment. You could trust your family's honor to 
them, or the ordering of your meal. Only at Antoine's 
and in the pages of Leonard Merrick does one find such 
servitors. 

We accepted our Joseph's suggestion that we allow 
him to bring us some of the specialties of the house. It 
was a wise decision, — from the prelude of oysters 
Rockefeller, — seared in a hot oven with a sauce of chives, 
butter and crumbs, — to the benediction of cafe brulot. 
Between came a marvel of a fish, covered with Creole 
sauce, a sublimated chicken a la King, a salad and a 
sweet, all nicely proportioned to each other, but their 
memory was crowned by the cafe brulot. In came Joseph, 



14 WESTWARD HOBOES 

like all three Kings of Egypt, bearing a tall silver dish 
on a silver platter. The platter contained blazing brandy, 
the dish orange peel, lemon peel, cloves, cinnamon stick, 
four lumps of sugar, and two spoonfuls of brandy. 
Joseph stirred them into a melted nectar, then with a 
long silver ladle and the manner of a vestal virgin, swept 
the blazing brandy into the mixture above, and stood like 
a benevolent demon over the flame. An underling 
brought a pot of black coffee, which was added little by 
little to the fiery mixture, and stirred. Finally it was 
ladled into two small glasses. We swam in Swinburnian 
bliss. We paid our bill, and departed to a new New 
Orleans, where the secondhand stores were filled with 
genuine, priceless antiques, the pavings easy on our weary 
feet, the skies, as the meteorologist in the popular song 
observed, raining violets and daffodils. Mr. Volstead 
never tasted cafe brulot. 



CHAPTER III 

A LONG WAYS FROM HOME 

TWO days of downpour greeted us at Galveston 
while we waited for our car to arrive. It was the 
climax of three months of rain which had followed three 
drouthy years. The storm swept waves and spray over 
the breakwater toward the frame town which has sprung 
up hopefully after twice being devoured by the sea mon- 
ster. A city of khaki tents dripped mournfully under the 
drenching; wet sentries paced the coast-line, and looked 
suspiciously at two ladies — all women are ladies in Texas 
— who cared to fight their way along the sea-wall against 
such a gale. Toby and I were bored, when we were not 
eating Galveston's oysters. 

The city, pleasant enough under the sun, had its usual 
allotment of boulevards, bronze monuments, drug stores, 
bungalows of the modest and mansions of the local pluto- 
crats, but it had not the atmosphere of New Orleans. 
We were soon to learn that regardless of size, beauty or 
history, some towns have personality, others have about 
as much personality as a reception room in a Methodist 
dormitory. 

Next day, news came that our boat had docked, and 
telephoning revealed that the car was safely landed. 
There are joys to telephoning in the South. Central is 
courteous and eager to please, and the voices of stran- 
gers with whom one does curt business at home become 

15 



1 6 WESTWARD HOBOES 

here so soft and winning that old friendships are imme- 
diately cemented, repartee indulged in, and the receiver 
hung up with a feeling of regret. That is the kind of 
voice the agent for the Mallory Line had. To be sure, 
it took us a day to get the car from the dock to the street, 
when it would have taken half an hour at home, but it 
was a day devoted to the finer shades of intercourse and 
good fellowship. I reached the dock half an hour before 
lunch time. 

"Yes'm, the office is open, but I reckon yo' won't find 
any hands to move yo' car," was the accurate prediction 
of the official to whom I applied. "Pretty nearly lunch 
time, yo' know." 

So I waited, filling in time by answering the guarded 
questions the watchman put to me. I was almost as fasci- 
nating an object of attention to him as his Bull Durham, 
though I must admit that when there was a conflict 
between us, I never won, except once, when he asked 
where the car and I came from. 

"Massachusetts?" Bull Durham lost. 

A great idea struggled for expression. 1 could see him 
searching for the right, the inevitable word. I could see 
it born, as triumph and amusement played over his fea- 
tures. Then caution — should he spring it all at once or 
save it for a climax? Nonchalantly, as if such epigrams 
were likely to occur to him any time, he got it off. 

"You're a long ways from home, ain't yo'?" 

With the air of saying something equally witty, I 
replied, "I surely am." 

Like "When did you stop beating your wife," his 
question was one of those which has all the repartee its 
own way. For six months, we were to hear it several 



A LONG WAYS FROM HOME 17 

times daily, but it always came as a shock, and as if 
hypnotized, we were never to alter our response. And 
it was so true ! We were a long ways from home, fur- 
ther than we then realized. At times we seemed so long 
that we wondered if we should ever see home again. But 
we were never too far to meet some man, wittier than his 
fellows, who defined our location accurately. 

After his diagnosis and my acceptance of it, further 
conversation became anticlimactic. The "hands" were 
still absent at lunch, so I followed their example, and 
returning at two, found them still at lunch. But at last 
the agent drifted in, and three or four interested and 
willing colored boys. Everybody was pleasant, nobody 
was hurried, we exchanged courtesies, and signed papers, 
and after we really got down to business, in a surprisingly 
few minutes the car was rolled across the street by five- 
man power, while I lolled behind the steering wheel like 
Cleopatra in her galley. At the doorway the agent 
halted me. 

"Massachusetts car?" he asked. 

"Yes, sir," said I. Were there to be complications? 

In a flash he countered. 

"Yo' surely are a. long ways from home." 

I laughed heartily, and with rapier speed replied, 

"I surely am." 

They told us the road from Galt'^jton to Houston 
(Hewston) was good — none better. 

"Good shell road all the way. You'll make time on 
that road." This is the distinction between a Southerner 
and a Westerner. When the former tells you a road is 
good, he means that it once was good. When a West- 



1 8 WESTWARD HOBOES 

erner tells you the same thing, he means that it is going 
to be good at some happy future date. In Texas the 
West and South meet. 

We crossed the three-mile causeway which Galveston 
built at an expense of two million dollars, to connect 
her island town with her mainland. On all sides of us 
flatness like the flatness of the sea stretched to the hori- 
zon, and but for the horizon would have continued still 
further. The air was balmy as springtime in Italy. 
Meadow larks perched fat and puffy on fenceposts, drip- 
ping abrupt melodies which began and ended nowhere. 
The sky, washed with weeks of rain, had been dipped in 
blueing and hung over the earth to dry. After enduring 
gray northern skies, we were intoxicated with happi- 
ness. 

The happier I am, the faster I drive. The road of 
hard oyster shell we knew was good. They had told us 
we could make time on it, in so many words. Forty- 
eight miles an hour is not technically fast, but seems fast 
when you suddenly descend into a hard-edged hole a foot 
and a half deep. 

When we had separated ourselves from our baggage, 
we examined the springs. By a miracle they were intact. 
In first gear, the car took a standing jump, and emerged 
from the hole. For one of her staid matronly build, she 
did very well at her first attempt. Later she learned to 
leap boulders, and skip lightly from precipice to preci- 
pice and if we could have kept her in training six months 
longer, she could have walked out halfway on a tight- 
rope, turned around and got back safely to land. 

The holes increased rapidly until there was no spot in 
the road free from them. Our course resembled an 



A LONG WAYS FROM HOME 19 

earthworm's. Except for the holes, the road was all 
its sympathizers claimed for it. We maneuvered two 
partly washed away bridges, and came to a halt. 

Airplanes were soaring above us in every direction. 
We were passing Ellington Field. But the immediate 
cause of our halt was two soldiers, who begged a lift to 
Houston. We were glad to oblige them, but after a hope- 
less glance at the tonneau piled high with baggage, they 
decided to ride on the running board. If the doughboy 
on the left had only been the doughboy on the right run- 
ning board, this chapter would have been two days 
shorter. It was Friday, and we had thirteen miles to go, 
and Friday and thirteen make a bad combination. 

Toby chatted with her soldier and I with mine, who 
was a mechanician at the flying field. It was a disappoint- 
ment not to have him an aviator, though he admitted a 
mechanician's was a far weightier responsibility. Before 
the war, he had been a professional racer, had come in 
second in a championship race between San Francisco 
and Los Angeles, and gave such good reasons why he 
hadn't come in first that he seemed to have taken a mean 
advantage of the champion. 

"Sixty-three miles is about as fast as I've ever driven," 
I said in an off-hand way. 

"Sixty-three? That's not fast. When you get going 
ninety-five to a hundred, that's something like driving." 

"This car," I explained, "won't make more than fifty. 
At fifty she vibrates till she rocks from side to side." 

He looked at the wheel hungrily. "Huh! I bet I 
could bring her up to seventy-five." 

Stung, I put my foot on the gas, and the speedometer 
needle swung to the right. As we merged with the 



20 WESTWARD HOBOES 

traffic of Houston, shell-holes were left behind us, and 
passing cars were taking advantage of a perfect concrete 
road. A Hudson with a Texas number passed us with a 
too insistent horn, the driver smiled scornfully and looked 
hack, and his three children leaned out from the back 
to grin. And they were only going a miserable thirty. 
The near-champion looked Impotently at the steering 
wheel, and in agonized tones commanded, "Step on it!" 

The Hudson showed signs of fight, and lured us 
through the traffic at a lively pace. My companion on 
the running board was dying of mortification. I knew 
how he itched to seize the wheel, and for his sake I re- 
doubled my efforts. In a moment the impudent Hudson 
children ceased to leer from the back of their car, and 
were pretending to admire the scenery on the other side. 
Then suddenly the Hudson lost all interest in the race. 

"Turn down the side street," yelled my passenger, 
frantically. I tried to turn, wondering, but the carbure- 
tor sputtered and died. 

I will say that it is almost a pleasure to be arrested in 
Texas, Two merry motor-cops smiled at us wlnsomely. 
There was sympathy, understanding and good fellow- 
ship in their manner, — no malice, yet firmness withal, 
which is the way I prefer to be handled by the police. 
As officers they had to do their dut>^ As gentlemen, they 
regretted it. 

Toby, chatting about aviation with the man on her run- 
ning-board, was completely taken by surprise to hear 
"Ah'm sahry, lady, but we'll jest have to ask you-all 
to come along with us." 

What an embarrassing position for our passengers! 
They had accepted our hospitalit}', egged us on to un- 



A LONG Wx^YS FROM HOME 21 

lawful speed, and landed us In the court-house, — with 
pay-day weeks behind. Their chagrin deepened as their 
efforts to free us unlawfully went for naught. Our in- 
dulgent captors could not have regretted it more if we 
had been their own sisters, but they made it clear we must 
follow them. 

"You go ahead, and I'll show her the way," sug- 
gested my tempter. That he had traveled the same road 
many, many times became evident to us. In fact, he con- 
fided that he had been arrested in every state in the 
Union, and his face was so well known in the Houston 
court that the judge had wearied of fining him, and now 
merely let him off with a rebuke. So hoping our faces 
would have the same effect on the judge, we trustingly 
following his directions into town, our khaki-clad friends 
leading. 

"Turn off to the right here," said my guide. I turned, 
and in a flash, the motor-cycles wheeled back to us. 

Smiling as ever, our captors shook their heads warn- 
ingly. 

"Now, lady, none of that! You follow right after 
us." 

Profusely my guide protested he had merely medi- 
tated a short cut to the station house. Elaborately he 
explained the route he had intended to take. Poor chap, 
D'Artagnan himself could not have schemed more nimbly 
to rescue a lady from the Bastille. I saw how his mad- 
cap mind had visioned the quiet turn down the side street, 
the doubling on our tracks, the lightning change of him- 
self into the driver's seat, a gray Cadillac streaking ninety 
miles an hour past the scattering populace of Houston, 



22 WESTWARD HOBOES 

then breathless miles on Into the safety of the plains — 
the ladies rescued, himself a hero — : — 

Instead, we tamely drew up before a little brick sta- 
tion-house two blocks beyond. He did all he could, even 
offering to appear in court the next day and plead for us, 
but from what we now knew of his local record, it seemed 
wiser to meet the judge on our own merits. 

Our arrival caused a sensation. The police circles of 
Houston evidently did not every day see a Massachusetts 
car piled high with baggage driven by two women, 
flanked by a soldier on each running board. When we 
entered the sheriff's office, every man in the room turned 
his back for a moment and shook with mirth. They led 
me to a wicket window with Toby staunchly behind. The 
sheriff, in shirt sleeves and suspenders, amiably pushed a 
bag of Bull Durham toward me. I started back at this 
unusual method of exchanging formalities. A policeman, 
also in shirt sleeves and suspenders, a twinkle concealed 
in his sweet Southern drawl, explained, 

"The lady thawt yo' meant them fixin's for her, 
Charley, instead of fo' that mean speed-catcher." 

The sheriff took my name and address. 

"Massachusetts?" he exclaimed. Then, all of a sud- 
den, he shot back at me. "Yo're a lawng ways from 
home!" 

"I wish I were longer," I said. 

"Never mind, lady," he said, soothingly and caress- 
ingly. "Yo' give me twenty dollars now, and tell the 
jedge your story tomorrow, an' seein' as how you're a 
stranger and a lady, he'll give it all back to you." 

On that understanding, I paid him twenty dollars. 

At three next afternoon, Toby and I sought the court- 



A LONG WAYS FROM HOME 23 

house to get our twenty dollars back, as agreed. The 
ante-room was filled with smoke from a group of Hous- 
tonians whose lurking smiles seemed to promise indul- 
gence. The judge was old and impassive, filmed with an 
absent-mindedness hard to penetrate. Yet he, too, had a 
lurking grin which he bit off when he spoke. 

"Yo' are charged with exceeding the speed limit at 
a rate of fo'ty-five miles an hour." 

"Your Honor, this was my first day in the State, and 
I hadn't learned your traffic laws." 

He looked up over his spectacles. '*Yo're from Mass- 
achusetts?" 

"Yes, sir!" 

Toby and I waited in suspense. We saw a faint spark 
light the cold, filmed blue eye, spread to the corner of his 
grim mouth, while a look of benevolent anticipation 
rippled over his set countenance. It was coming! I got 
ready to say with a spontaneous laugh "We surely are." 

And then he bit it off ! 

"Yo' know speeding is a very serious offense " 

"I wouldn't have done it for worlds, your Honor, if I 
hadn't seen all the Texas cars going quite fast, so I 
thought you wouldn't mind if I did the same. I only 
arrived yesterday from Massachusetts." 

"Thet's so. Yo're from Massachusetts?" 

We waited hopefully. But again he bit it off. 

"It's a mighty serious offense. But, seein' as yo're a 
stranger and a lady at that " 

His voice became indulgently reassuring. We felt 
we had done well to wait over a day, and trust to South- 
ern chivalry. 



24 WESTWARD HOBOES 

"Considering everything, I'll be easy on you. Twenty 
dollars." 

His tone was so fatherly that I knew only gratitude 
for being saved from two months in a Texas dungeon. 

"Thank you, your Honor," I faltered. 

Outside, Toby looked at me in scorn. 

"What did you thank him for?" she asked. 

Whether it be contempt of court or no, I wish to state 
that subsequent inquiry among the hairdressers, hotel 
clerks, and garage men of Houston, revealed that a 
fine of such magnitude had never been imposed in the 
annals of the town. The usual sentence was a rebuke 
for first offenses, two dollars for the second and so on. 
The judge was right. I was a stranger 

But what could you expect from a soul of granite who 
could resist such a mellowing, opportune, side-splitting 
bon mot? — could swallow it unsaid? 

I hope it choked him. 



CHAPTER IV 

CHIVALRY VS. GUMBO 

A GUIDE, who at the age of twelve had in disgust 
left his native state, once epitomized it to me. 

"Texas is a hell of a state. Chock full of socialists, 
horse-thieves and Baptists." 

Socialists and horse-thieves we did not encounter; it 
must have been the Baptists, then, who were responsible 
for the law putting citizens who purchase gasoline on Sun- 
day in the criminal class. Unluckily the easy-going ga- 
rage man who obligingly gave us all other possible in- 
formation neglected to tell us of this restriction on Satur- 
day night. Accordingly, when we started on Sunday 
morning, we had only five gallons and a hundred odd 
miles to go. We had no desire to meet Houston's ju- 
diciary again. 

A little group of advisers gathered to discuss our prob- 
lem. The road our New York optimist had routed for us 
as "splendid going all the way" was a sea of mud. Four 
mule teams could not pull us out, we were told. Three 
months of steady rain had reduced the State of Texas 
to a state of "gumbo." Each man had a tale of en- 
counter and defeat for each road suggested. Each de- 
clared the alternatives suggested by the others impossi- 
ble. But, at last, came one who had "got through" by 
the Sugarland road the day before. He voiced the defi- 
nition of a good road in Texas, a definition which we 
frequently encountered afterward, 

25 



26 WESTWARD HOBOES 

"The road's all right, ef yo' don't boag, otherwise 
you'll find It kinder rough." 

With this dubious encouragement we started, at nine 
in the morning, hoping the Baptists further out In the 
country would grow lenient In the matter of gasoline, 
as the square of their distance from Houston. 

It was a heavenly day, the sun hot and the vibrant blue 
sky belying the sodden fields and brimming ditches. The 
country, brown and faintly rolling, under the warmth 
of the Southern springtime was reminiscent of the Roman 
Campagna. Song sparrows filled the air with abrupt 
showers of music, and now and then a bald and black- 
winged buzzard thudded down into a nearby field. For 
miles on both sides of the road we saw only black soil 
soaked and muddy, with rivers for furrows, and only a 
few brown stalks standing from last year's cotton or rice 
crop. The eternal flatness of the country suggested a 
reason for the astounding height of the loose-jointed 
Texans we had seen; they had to be tall to make any 
impression on the landscape. It accounted, too, for their 
mild, easy-going, unhurried and unhurriable ways. What 
is the use of haste, when as much landscape as ever still 
stretches out before one? 

Before we reached Sugarland, a lonesome group of 
houses on what had once been a huge sugar plantation, 
our misgivings began. Mud In Texas has a different 
meaning from mud In Massachusetts; it means gumbo, 
morasses. Sargasso Seas, broken axles, abandoned cars. 
From the reiteration of the words, "Yo' may git through, 
but I think yo'll boag" we began to realize that it was 
easier to get Into Texas, even through the eye of the 
police court, than to get out of it. 



CHIVALRY VS. GUMBO 27 

At Sugarland we took on illicit gasoline and a pas- 
senger. He was bound for a barbecue, but volunteered to 
steer us through a particularly bad spot a mile further. 
We roused his gloom by a reference to the Blue Laws of 
Texas. 

"Ef this legislatin' keeps on," he said, "a man'll have 
to git a permit to live with his wife. Texas aint what it 
used to be. This yere's a dry, non-gambling county, but 
this yere town's the best town in the state." 

We followed his gesture wonderingly toward the 
lonely cluster of houses, a warehouse, a store, an ex- 
saloon with the sign badly painted out, and "refresh- 
ments" painted in, and the usual group of busy loafers 
at the store. 

"Yes ma'am. It's a good town. Twice a year on 
Gawge Washin'ton's birthday and the Fo'th we hold a 
barbecue an' everyone in the county comes. I'm right 
sorry I cain't take yo' ladies along; I'm sure I could 
show yo' a good time. Whiskey flows like water, we 
roast a dozen oxen, and sometimes as much as fifteen 
thousand dollars will change hands at one crap game. 
Wc whoop it up for a week, and then we settle down, and 
mind the law again." 

Under the guidance of our kindly passenger, we 
learned a new technique in driving. In first gear, avoid- 
ing the deceptively smooth but slimy roadside, we made 
for the deepest ruts, racing the engine till it left a trail 
of thick white smoke behind, clinging to the steering 
wheel, while the heavy car rocked and creaked in the 
tyrannical grip of the ruts like a ship in the trough of 
the waves. Without our friend, we never should have 
got through. He walked ahead, selected the impassable 



28 WESTWARD HOBOES 

places from those which merely looked so, and beamed, 
when rocked and bruised from the wheel I steered the 
good car to comparatively dry land. A little further, 
where the barbecue began, he bade us a regretful fare- 
well, and requested us to look him up when next we 
came to Texas. 

"I sure would 'a liked to have went to Boston," he 
added, "but I aint sure ef I had 'a went theah, whetheh I 
could 'a understood their brogue." 

Since Houston we had learned the full meaning of 
Texas optimism. "Roads are splendid, ma'am. I think 
you'll git through," we mentally labeled as "probably 
passable." But when we heard, in the same soft, gentle 
monotone, "Pretty poor roads, ma'am; I think yo'U 
boag," we knew we should "boag" — bog to the hubs in 
a plaster of Paris cast. At Richmond, where they told 
us that the roads which Houston had described as "splen- 
did" were quite impassable, we sadly learned that to a 
Texan, any road twenty miles away is a "splendid road," 
ten miles away is "pretty fair," but at five, "you'll sure 
boag." 

Again we faced the probability of progressing only a 
few miles further on Texas soil, but the town flocked to 
our aid, told us of two alternate roads, and promptly 
split into two factions, each claiming we should "boag" 
if we took the road advised by the other, A friendly 
soda clerk gained our confidence by asserting he never 
advised any road he had not traveled personally. He 
was such a unique change from the rest of Texas that 
we took his advice and the East Bernard road to Eagle 
Lake. It was only the fourth change from our original 
route planned when overlooking the asphalt of New 



CHIVALRY VS. GUMBO 29 

York, and each detour decreased our chances of getting 
back to the highways. But there was no alternative. The 
soda clerk as he served us diluted ginger ale, reassured 
us. "It's a pretty good road, and ef yo' don't boag, I 
think yo'll git through." 

We bogged. We came, quite suddenly to a tell-tale 
stretch of black, spotting the red-brown road, and knew 
wc were in for it. At each foot, we wondered if we 
should bog in the next. Eliza must have felt the same 
way, crossing the Ice, especially when a cake slipped from 
under her. As directed, I kept to the ruts. Sometimes 
they expanded to a three-foot hole, into which the car 
descended with a heart-rending thump. Once in a rut, 
It was Impossible to get out. The mud, of the consis- 
tency of modeling clay, would have made the fortune of 
a dealer in art supplies. At last, a wrong choice of ruts 
pulled us into this stiff mass to our hubs, almost wrenching 
the differential from the car, and we found ourselves 
stopping. As soon as we stopped, we were done for. We 
sank deeper and deeper. 

We got out, sinking ourselves halfway to the knees 
in gumbo. We were on a lonely road In an absolutely 
flat country, with not a house on the horizon. We had no 
ropes, and no shovel. We looked at the poor car, foun- 
dered to her knees In sculptor's clay, and wondered how 
many dismal days we must wait before the morass dried. 

And then came the first manifestation of a peculiar 
luck which followed us on our entire trip. Never saving 
us from catastrophe, It rescued us In the most unlikely 
fashion, soon after disaster. 

Along rode a boy — on horseback — the first person we 
had seen for hours. We stopped him, and inquired 



30 WESTWARD HOBOES 

f where we could find a mule, a rope and a man. Having 
i started out to make the trip without masculine aid, it 
I chagrined us to have to resort to it at our first difiiculty, 
but we were not foolish enough to believe we could extri- 
cate the car unaided from its bed of sticky clay. The boy 
looked at us, looked at the imprisoned machine, and 
silently spat. Texas must have a law requiring that 
rite, with penalties for infringement thereof. We never 
saw it broken. 

The formality over, he replied, "I don't know." We 
suggested planks, — he knew of none. We put him down, 
bitterly, as an ill-natured dolt. But, as we learned later, 
Texans move slowly, but their hearts are in the right 
place. He was only warming up. Finally he spat again, 
lighted a cigarette, got off his horse, silently untied a 
rope from his saddle, and bound It about our back wheel, 
disregarding calmly the mire sucking at his boots. I 
started the engine. No results. All three watched the 
fettered Gulliver helplessly. Then, while Toby and I 
lifted out heavy suitcases and boxes from the seat which 
held the chains, he watched us, with the mild patience of 
an ox. 

Reinforcements came, a moment later, from a decrepit 
buggy, containing a boy and two girls. They consulted, 
on seeing our plight, and the girls, hearty country lasses 
in bare feet and sunbonnets, urged their escort, appar- 
ently to his relief, to stay the Sunday courtship and give 
us aid. Of more agile fettle than our first knight, he 
galvanized him Into a semblance of motion. Together 
they gathered brush, and, denuding their horses for the 
purpose, tied bits of rope to the rear wheels. The en- 
gine started, stalled, and started again a dozen times. 



CHIVALRY VS. GUMBO 31 

At last the car stirred a bit from her lethargy, the two 
boys put their country strength against her broad back 
and pushed; the engine roared like a man-eating tiger — 
and we got out. 

But we still had to conquer a black stretch of about 
one hundred yards, in which one of our rescuers had 
broken an axle, so he cheerfully told us, only yesterday. 
We were faced with the problem to advance or retreat? 
Either way was mud. We might get caught between 
two morasses, and starve to death before the sun dried 
the roads. We might turn back, but why return to con- 
ditions we had worked two hours to escape? We de- 
cided to advance boldly, and, if need be, gloriously break 
an axle. "Race her for all she's worth," counseled the 
livelier of our rescuers, from the running board where 
he acted as pilot. I raced her, though it nearly broke 
my heart to mistreat the engine so cruelly. We wavered, 
struck a rut, and were gripped in it, as in the bonds of 
matrimony, for better or worse. It led us to a gruesome 
mass of "soup," with a yawning hole at the bottom. 

"Here's where I broke my axle," shouted my pilot. 
To break the shock meant to stick; to race ahead might 
mean a shattered car. There was no time to think it 
over. I pushed down on the gas. A fearful bump, and 
we went on, the mud sucking at the tires with every inch 
we advanced. Cheering, the others picked their way to 
us. Our friends piled our baggage into the tonneau. 
Toby and I looked at each other, worried by the same 
problem, — the problem that never ceased to bother us 
until we reached Chicago; — to tip or not to tip? 

They were such nice lads ; we already seemed like old 
friends. Yet they were strangers who had scratched 



32 WESTWARD HOBOES 

their hands and muddied their clothes, and relinquished 
cheerfully the Sunday society of their ladies on our be- 
half. Too much to offer pay for, it seemed too much 
to accept without offering to pay. We learned then that 
such an offer outrages neither Western independence nor 
Southern chivalry when made in frank gratitude and good- 
fellowship. The first suggestion of payment invariably 
meets an off-hand but polite refusal, which tact may some- 
times change to acceptance. If accepted, it is never as a 
tip, but as a return for services; offer it as a tip, and you 
offer an insult to a friend. We found it a good rule, as 
Americans dealing with Americans, to be graceful enough 
to play the more difficult role of recipient when we de- 
cently could, and in the spirit of the West, "pass it on to 
the next fellow." 

Eagle Lake seemed as difficult to attain as the treasure 
beyond seven rivers of fire and seven mountains of glass. 
An hour's clear sailing over roads no worse than 
ploughed fields brought it nearly in sight, — seven miles 
to go, under a pink sky lighted by a silver crescent. And 
then Toby, seeing a grassy lake on the side of the road, 
forsook two tried and trusty mud-holes for it, and ditched 
us again ! 

Nearby was a farmhouse, with two men and a Ford 
standing in the driveway. Hardly had we "boaged," 
our wheels churning a pool deep enough to bathe in, when 
we saw them loading shovels and tools into the car, 
and driving to our aid. They came with boreboding 
haste. They greeted us cheerfully — too cheerfully, we 
thought; joked about the hole, and admitted they spent 
most of their time shovelling people out. They knew 
their job — we had to admit that. They wrestled with 



CHIVALRY VS. GUMBO 33 

the jack, setting it on a shovel to keep it from sinking 
in the swamp; profanely cheerful, fussed over the chains, 
which we later guiltily discovered were too short for our 
over-sized tires, backed their car to ours, tied a rope to it, 
and pulled. We sank deeper. They shoveled, jacked, 
chopped sage-brush, and commandeered every passing 
man and car. The leader of the wreckers was a Mr. 
Poole, a typical Westerner of the old school, — long, 
flowing gray whiskers, sombrero, and keen watchful face. 
He had also a delightful sense of humor, — was In fact 
so cheerful that we became more and more gloomy as We 
noted the array of Fords and men clustered about. It 
looked to us like a professional mud-hole. 

They hitched two Fords to the car, while eight men 
pushed from the back, but nothing came of the effort. 
A fine looking man named Sinclair, with gentle manners, 
was elected by the crowd to go for his mule team, "the 
finest pair in the county." An hour later he came back. 
He had gone two miles, changed to overalls, and hitched 
up his mules In the meantime, returning astride the off 
beast. 

At sight of the fallen car, the mules gave a gently 
ironic side-glance, stepped Into place, waited quietly, and 
at the word of command, stepped forward nonchalantly, 
while I started the car simultaneously. It took them 
exactly five minutes to do what eight men, two women, 
two Fords and a Cadillac had failed to do in two hours' 
hard work. For days after, when we passed a mule, 
we offered him silent homage. 

While Toby, looking and acting like a guilty wretch, 
piled the baggage Into the car, I approached Mr. Sin- 
clair and Mr. Poole, who stood watching the rescued 



34 WESTWARD HOBOES 

leviathan with eyes gleaming satisfaction, and put the 
usual timid question. 

"Will you tell me what I can offer all these people for 
helping us out?" 

Mr. Sinclair, owner of the stalwart mules, smiled and 
said: "I shouldn't offer them a thing. We all get into 
trouble one time or another, and have to be helped out. 
Just you tell them 'thank you' and I reckon that'll be all 
the pay they want." 

And before we could turn around to carry out his 
Injunction, half the crowd had melted away! 

To all motorists who become "boaged," I beg to 
recommend the mud-hole of my friends, Mr. Poole and 
Mr. Sinclair, of Lissie, Texas. 



CHAPTER V 

NIBBLING AT THE MAP OF TEXAS 

VISITING an ostrich farm is as thrilling as going in 
wading, but to be thorough, we did our duty by 
San Antonio's plumed and gawky giants before starting 
again on our well-nigh hopeless task of making an im- 
pression on the State of Texas. 

When we looked at our mileage record we were en- 
couraged, only to be cast down again by a glance at the 
map, whose south-west corner we had only begun to nibble 
at in six days' faithful plodding. It was an incentive to 
an early start. We filled our tank with gas at the tiled 
station near the Alamo, rejoicing in the moderate price. 
In one respect, at least, Texas is the motorists's paradise. 
Gasoline is cheap, oil is cheap, storage for the night 
ranges from "two bits" to half a dollar, while clear 
weather and local honesty make it possible to avoid even 
that expense by leaving the car overnight in the Garage 
of the Blue Sky. Tires are mended and changed for a 
quarter, and in some places for nothing. And garage- 
keepers are honest, — except when, yielding to local pa- 
triotism, they describe the state of the roads. 

For three miles we meandered through San Antonio's 
"Cabbage Patch," steering around tin cans, Mexican 
babies, and goats taking the freedom of the city, until 
we came to a fine broad macadam in good repair, — our 
first real road since the ill-fated stretch outside Houston, 

35 



36 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Mexicans hung outside their little shops, whose festoons 
of onions and peppers painted Italy into the landscape. 
Overhead, we counted dozens of airplanes, some from 
the government school, others from Katharine Stinson's 
modest hangars, making the most of the weather. One 
coquetted with us, following us for several miles. We 
leaned out and waved, but at that, it was a most im- 
personal form of flirtation. Not a quiver of the great 
wings, not a swoop through the blue, rewarded our aban- 
don. I wish I might record otherwise, for a moment 
later a rusty nail had flattened our back tire, and we 
were left alone on the prairie to solve the problem of 
changing the heavy rims, which our combined strength 
could hardly lift. How romantic and happy a touch 
could be added to this narrative if at this point I could 
state that the airman fluttered to our feet, saluted, 
changed the tire, and then circled back to the blue. But, 
doubtless himself from Boston, he did no such thing. He 
kept steadily on his course, till he was only a speck in our 
lives. If the cautious man reads this, let him know he is 
forgiven the tire, but not the climax. 

We had been airy, at home, when they mentioned the 
tires. There were, nevertheless, internal doubts. Mass- 
achusetts is too crowded with garages to furnish much 
practice in wayside repairing, and I had been lucky. But 
now came the test. Theoretically, we understood the 
process, but jacks go up when they should go down, nuts 
rust, and rims warp. We searched the horizon for 
help, found none, pulled out the tools, and got down in 
the mud. 

Our jack was the kind whose advertisements show 
an immaculate young lady in white daintily propelling a 



NIBBLING AT THE MAP OF TEXAS 37 

handle at arm's length, while the car rises easily in the 
air. Admitting she has the patience of Job, the strength 
of Samson, and the ingenuity of the devil, I should like 
to meet her just long enough to ask her if she stood off 
at arm's length while she put the jack in place, rescued 
it as it toppled over, searched vainly for a solid spot in 
which the jack would not sink, pulled it out of the mud 
again, pushed the car off as it rolled back on her, hunted 
for stones to prop it up, and a place in the axles where 
the arm would fit, and then had the latch give way and be 
obliged to do It all over again. And, with no reflections 
on the veracity of the lady or her inspired advertiser, I 
should demand the address of her pastor and her laun- 
dress. 

We worked half an hour jacking up the car. No 
sooner had we got It where It should be, than the car's 
weight sank It In the mud, and we had to begin again 
our snail process. To my delight, Toby was fascinated 
by the thing, and from that hour claimed it as her own. 
We mutually divided the labor as our tastes and talents 
dictated. It seemed that Toby revelled In handling tools, 
which dropped from my Inept grasp, while my sense of 
mechanics and experience surpassed hers. I was to be 
the diagnostician, she the surgeon. In other words, I 
bossed the job, while she did the work. 

While Toby struggled with the jack a Mexican on a 
flea-bitten cayuse slouched on the horizon. He was black 
and hairy, and one "six-gun" in his teeth would have 
signed his portrait as Captain of the Bandits. I stopped 
him and asked him to lend us his brute strength, which 
he smilingly did, pleased as a child at being initiated Into 
the sacred mysteries of motoring. When I allowed him 



38 WESTWARD HOBOES 

to propel the socket-wrench his cup ran over. He did 
everything backward, but he furnished horse-sense, which 
we lacked, and when we attempted to lift heavy weights, 
he courteously supplanted us. The three of us invented 
a lingua franca in Mexican, Italian, French and musical 
terms. 

"Tire, — avanti!" Gesture of lifting. Groan,— signi- 
fying great weight. 

"Troppo, — troppo! Largo, largo! Ne faites pas ?al 
Ah-h, si, si, — bono hombre, multo, multo bono hombrel" 

Thus encouraged, he worked willingly and faithfully, 
and at the end of a half hour's toil, waved aside our 
thanks, untied his weary cayuse, and raised his sombrero. 
He had not robbed us nor beaten us, but had acted as one 
Christian to another. I ran after him saying fluently, as 
if I had known the language all my life, "Multo, multo, 
beaucoup bono hombre." He showed his brilliant teeth. 
I offered him money, which he at first refused. "Bono 
hombre," I insisted, "Cigarettos!" And so he took it, 
much pleased. He thoroughly enjoyed the episode. I 
hope his boss did, when he arrived an hour late. Toby 
enjoyed the episode, too, and persisted in sending home 
postcards, on which she spoke of being rescued by a 
Mexican bandit. 

During the morning several little towns, — all alike, 
flitted by us, — Sabinal, Hondo, Dunlay. At Hondo, 
where the mud was thickest, we stopped at a little general 
store for lunch. The proprietor, a tall, vague man, dis- 
cussed earnestly, as one connoisseur to another, the merits 
of the various tinned goods he submitted, and after a 
leisurely chat and several purchases, in which the matter 
of trade became secondary, he urged on us several painted 



NIBBLING AT THE MAP OF TEXAS 39 

sticks of candy, a new kind which he said he enjoyed suck- 
ing during his solitary guard at the store. After the 
customary, "You're a long ways from home," he bade us 
goodbye, hopefully but sadly, as one would a consumptive 
great-aunt about to take a trip to the North Pole, and 
watched us bump out of sight. 

We had twenty miles of such luxuriant mud that we 
stopped to photograph it. It is only slight exaggeration 
to say that the ruts came to the camera's level. Then 
we forded the Neuces River, a stream woven into early 
Texan history, and began to climb out of the land of 
cotton into the grazing country. The herds and herds 
of sheep and white angora goats we now encountered 
made a charming landscape but an irritating episode. A 
large flock of silly sheep rambled halfway to our car, 
then, frightened, fled in the other direction, turning again 
with those they met, who also faced and fled, baa-ing; 
no militia could clear the traffic they disorganized. Each 
herd we met meant a wasted half hour. Their herders 
sat their horses in grim patience, with the infinite con- 
tempt shepherds get for their charges and for life in 
general. Out here, "being the goat" takes a new and 
dignified meaning — for a goat is placed with each hun- 
dred sheep to steer the brainless mass, act as leaders in 
danger, and furnish the one brain of the herd. 

These pastoral happenings delayed us, until toward 
night we climbed dark dunes into a clear golden sunset. 
Through a gate we entered what seemed to be a cattle 
track through a large ranch, but was in fact the main 
highway to El Paso. The roads in this part of the 
country cut through large holdings, and the pestiferous 
cattle gate begins to bar the road, necessitating stopping, 



40 WESTWARD HOBOES 

crossing, shutting the gate again, several times a mile. 
And let me warn the traveling Easterner that not to leave 
a gate as you find it is in truth a crime against hospitality, 
for one is often on private property. 

Queer blunt mesas rose on all sides of us, and when 
dark came upon us we had entered a small canyon, and 
were winding to the top and down again out of the 
hills. The cattlegates and rocky road made going slow, 
and as Venus, frosty and brilliant, came out, we were im- 
prisoned in this weirdly gloomy spot, on the top of the 
world. A quaver in Toby's usually stalwart voice made 
me wonder if she were remembering her mother's last 
words, — "Don't drive at night." This is no reflection on 
Toby's staunchness; the immensity of the West, after 
dark, when first it looms above one used to the coziness 
of ordered streets, must always seem portentous and 
awful. We hastened on, winding down through one en- 
chanting glade after another, till we met the highway 
again. Toby took the wheel, and we hummed along. 
Suddenly a stone struck the engine, and a deafening roar 
like that of an express train frightened us. Something 
vital, by its clatter, had been shattered, and we again 
faced the possibility of delay and frustration — even re- 
treat. We got out and searched for the trouble. Luckily 
we had that day unpacked our flash-light, for Venus, 
though she looked near enough to pick out of the sky, fur- 
nished poor illumination for engine troubles. Search re- 
vealed an important looking pipe beneath the car broken 
in two, with a jagged fracture. Should we chance driving 
on, or camp till morning? 

We were tired and our pick-up lunch of deviled ham 
and crackers seemed long ago. After a hard day's run, 



NIBBLING AT THE MAP OF TEXAS 41 

the difficulties of making camp in the dark, with our 
equipment still unpacked, and going cold and supper- 
less to bed loomed large. Besides, there could not have 
been worse camping ground in the world. Soggy cot- 
ton fields under water on both sides gave us the choice 
of sleeping in the middle of the road or on the back 
seat piled high with baggage. The engine, though roar- 
ing like a wounded lioness, still ran steadily. I knew just 
enough to realize we had broken the exhaust pipe, but 
hardly enough to know whether running the car under 
such conditions would maim it for life. But though 
hunger won out, the real mechanic's love for his engine 
was born in us, and feeling like parents who submit their 
only child to a major operation, we drove painfully at 
eight miles an hour the ten miles into B — , the town echo- 
ing to our coming. 

The village was a mere cross-roads, a most unlikely 
place for a night's stop, picturesque and Mexican, with 
low 'dobe houses, yellow and pink, the noise of a phono- 
graph from each corner, and lighted doorways filled with 
slouching Mexicans and trig American doughboys from 
a nearby camp, — and everywhere else, Rembrantlan 
gloom. At a new tin garage with the universal Henry's 
name over the door we were relieved to learn we had 
done no damage. Most of the cars in town had, in 
fact, broken their exhaust pipes on loose stones, and ran 
chugging, as we had. 

It is not usual for garage helpers to aid strange ladies 
in hunting a night's lodging, but ours willingly let them- 
selves be commandeered for the purpose, and the chase 
began. The town had a "hotel"; — which, in the South, 
may be a one-story cafe, or something less ambitious. 



42 WESTWARD HOBOES 

This one, kept by a negro woman, was more than dubious 
looking, but when the proprietor said it was "full up," our 
hearts sank. We wearily made the rounds of the village, 
guided by rumors of a vacant room here or there, only to 
find the houses, four-roomed cottages at best, filled with 
army wives. Our needs reduced us to Bolshevism. Pass- 
ing an imposing white house, neat as wax, and two stories 
high, we sent our cicerone to demand for us lodging for 
the night. Had it been the official White House we 
should have done no less, and as the residence of the 
owner of the garage where our cripple was stored it gave 
us a claim on his hospitality no right-minded citizen 
could deny. Alas, we learned that Mr. V's eleven hos- 
tages to fortune, rather than civic pride, accounted for 
the size of his house. The owner sent us a cordially 
regretful message that his bedrooms teemed with little 
V's, but thought his brother's daughter might take the 
strangers in, as her parents were away and their room 
vacant. 

A little figure in a nightgown opened the door a crack 
when we knocked at their cottage. 

"Who is it?" asked a Southern voice, timidly. 

"Two ladies from Boston, who would like a room for 
the night." We threw as much respectable matronliness 
as possible into our own voices. The magic word "Bos- 
ton" reassured. Boston may be a dishonored prophet 
in Cambridge and Brookline, but to the South and West 
it remains autocrat of the breakfast table. I know our 
prospective hostess, from the respect and relief in her 
tones, visualized Louisa May Alcott and Julia Ward 
Howe waiting on her doorstep, and she hastened to 



NIBBLING AT THE MAP OF TEXAS 43 

throw open the door to what we saw was her bedroom, 
saying "Come in! You're a long ways " 

Boston, your stay-at-homes never realize how distant, 
how remote and fabulous your rock-bound shores seem to 
the Other Half west of the Mississippi! 

It was a German Lutheran household into which we 
stepped. Two little tow-headed boys were curled up 
asleep in their sister's room, and we tip-toed past to the 
parents' vacated bedroom, ours for the night, with its 
mottoes, its lithographed Christ on the wall, its stove and 
tightly shut windows. This German family had brought 
over old-world peasant habits, and curiously contrasted 
against its bareness, promiscuity and not over scrupulous 
cleanliness was the American daughter who needed but a 
little more polish to be ready for any rung in the social 
ladder. She was a real little lady, as hospitable as though 
we had been really invited. 

Supperless, footsore and weary, we tumbled into the 
sheets vacated by the elder V's that morning, too grate- 
ful for shelter and the softness of the feather bed to feel 
squeamish. We waked in the sunshine of next morning 
to smell coffee brewing on our bedroom stove, and hear 
cautious whispers of two sturdy little Deutschers tip- 
toeing back and forth through our room to the wash-shed 
beyond, stealing awed glances at the Boston ladies in their 
mother's bed. In a stage whisper one called to his sister 
to learn where "the comb" was. She answered that Pa 
had taken it to San Anton', but after some search found 
them "the brush" hidden near father's notary stamp, on 
the bureau, — for the father was the local judge and a 
man much respected in the community. 

When the little boys departed for school, she brought 



44 WESTWARD HOBOES 

us coffee in the best china, apologizing for not offering 
us breakfast. She explained that she was to be married 
in three days, and was following her family to San An- 
ton' for the wedding. She showed us her ring, and her 
trousseau, all in pink, to her joy, and told us of her 
fiance, who had been a second lieutenant in France. 
Though she seemed a child, she had refused to marry him 
when he left, because she believed haste at such times im- 
prudent. And now she was all excitement over the great 
event, yet not too much to show a welcome as simple 
as it was beautiful to the midnight intruders from Boston. 

As usual, our desire to pay for our lodging met a firm, 
almost shocked refusal. We only felt more nearly even 
when at El Paso we sent her something deliciously pink 
for her trousseau. 

In Texas, overnight promises are to be discounted. 
Or is it not, perhaps, a universal law of the "night man" 
to pass on no information to the "day man?" Has the 
order taken a vow of silence more binding and terrible 
than the Dominican friars? It must be so, for never in 
ten years' experience with night men, have I known one 
to break the seal of secrecy which prevents them letting 
your confidence in the matter of flat tires and empty tanks 
go any further. Their delicacy in keeping all news of 
such infirmities from the ears of the day man is universal. 
Nor was there any exception next morning, when we 
visited our garage, hopeful of an early start. The ex- 
haust pipe was still unwelded, and our spare tire still 
flat. Furthermore, we were half an hour in the garage 
before anyone thought to mention that the resources of 
the place were inadequate to mend the pipe. They had 
trusted to our divining the fact, as the day wore on, — a 



NIBBLING AT THE MAP OF TEXAS 45 

more tactful way of breaking the news than coming out 
bluntly with the truth. 

At last, a passing stranger suggested we take the car 
to the nearby Fort, where a new welding machine had 
recently been installed. We chugged up the hill, attract- 
ing the notice of several soldiers from East Boston, on 
whom our Massachusetts number produced a wave of 
nostalgia. By this time, so used were we to being bene- 
ficiaries of entire strangers that before hailing anyone 
likely to offer to do us a favor, we fixed smiles fairly 
dripping with saccharine on our faces. 

A sergeant, hearing sympathetically our story, sent 
us to a lieutenant. He wavered. 

"I hate not to oblige a lady, ma'am, but this is gov- 
ernment property, and we aint allowed to do outside 
work." 

Looking at his stern face, we decided it would take at 
least an hour to win him over. Without moving a muscle 
he continued 

"But, seein' as you're a lady and a long ways from 
home, and can't git accommodated otherwise, you run 
your car back to the garage and I'll send a sergeant down 
to get the part, and he'll have it welded for you in a 
couple of hours." 

Two hours later not only the sergeant but the lieuten- 
ant were at the garage to see that the part went back 
properly into the engine. Meanwhile, doubting the ethics 
of letting Uncle Sam be our mechanic, we had provided 
two boxes of Camels for our benefactors, having learned 
that cigarettes will often be acceptable where money 
will not. The part was perfectly welded, the sergeant re- 
placed it with military efficiency, and then we exchanged 



46 WESTWARD HOBOES 

confidences. The lieutenant told us he was a "long-horn," 
but had been, before the war, a foreman in the very fac- 
tory which had built our car. Which explained his cor- 
diality, if explanation were needed in a land where every- 
one is cordial. We found that respect for the sterling 
worth of our car helped us along our way appreciably, — 
people everywhere approved it as "a good car," and ex- 
tended their approval to its inmates. The lieutenant non- 
plused us by refusing both pay and tobacco, but indicated 
that we might bestow both on the sergeant. He asked us 
to let him know when we came again to Texas, and we 
promised willingly, thanked Uncle Sam for his chivalry 
by proxy, and were quickly on our way to Del Rio. 
Texas had not yet failed us. 



CHAPTER VI 

''down by the RIO GRANDE" 

EVERY thriving Western town, if its politics are 
right, looks down on its hotels and up to its post- 
office. Del Rio was no exception; her granite post-office, 
imposing enough for three towns of its size, suggested 
Congressional sensitiveness to fences, while down street 
a block or two, the weather-beaten boards of "Frank's," 
with its creaking verandahs and uncarpeted lobby, printed 
the earlier pages of the little settlement, which, strad- 
dling the river from Mexico, had become the nucleus 
for frontier trade eddying to its banks. 

It is true that other hotels, of the spick and span brick 
ugliness the New West delights in, flanked the motion 
picture houses and drug-stores, but we chose Frank's, 
the oldest inhabitant, — a type of hotel fast becoming ex- 
tinct. Downstairs, plain sheathing; upstairs the same. 
Our bedroom opened on a veranda which we had to tra- 
verse to reach the bath. It was a novelty to us, but the 
traveling salesman next door took it casually enough, 
— or else he had forgotten to pack his bath-robe. 

Our hostess was the first of a long list of ladies young 
and old we were to meet, who knew well the gentle art 
of twirling a toothpick while she talked. Perhaps it is 
the badge of a waitress in these parts, like a fresh bush 
over ancient wine-houses, a silent, but eloquent testi- 
monial to the gustatory treats of the hotel. I think we 

47 



48 WESTWARD HOBOES 

never met, from now on, a waitress In Texas, Arizona 
or New Mexico, who was not thus equipped. Ours did 
not flourish hers In vain. The flakiness of the biscuits, 
the fragrance of the wild honey, and the melting de- 
liclousness of the river fish, caught fresh In the Rio 
Grande an hour before, caused us to see Del Rio with 
happy eyes. To this day, Toby speaks of It as If it were 
the third finest metropolis of the West, which must be 
attributed entirely to the seven biscuits which floated to 
her hungry mouth. I might as well admit at once our 
tendency, which I suspect other travelers share, to grade 
a town by the food It served. 

I suspect that Del Rio, to one unfed, would seem a 
commonplace hamlet, save for Its Interest as a border 
settlement. Mexico, three miles away, held out the 
charm of a forbidden land. We circled next morning to 
its border, past thatched shanties of Mexicans and 
negroes, and took a glance at the desolate land be- 
yond, barren, thorny, rolling away to faint blue hills. A 
camp of United States soldiers lay athwart our path, and 
two alert soldiers with a grin and a rifle apiece barred 
our progress. 

Toby had been keen to cross the line, but when she 
saw them she said characteristically, "Mexico seems to 
me vastly overrated." So ignoring the khaki, of our own 
free will and choice we turned back. I confess I was 
relieved. Toby has the post card habit to such an extent 
that I was prepared to have to fight our way across the 
border, dodging bullets and bandits, so that she might 
mail nonchalant cards to her friends, beginning, "We 
have just dropped Into Mexico." 

Our curiosity as to Mexico gave us an early start. 



"DOWN BY THE RIO GRANDE" 49 

Soon we were on a high plateau, all the world rolling 
below us. Soft brown hills led out to faint blue moun- 
tains outlined on the horizon. With a thrill we realized 
we were viewing the beginnings of the Rockies. For the 
first time in my life, I felt I had all the room I wantedY 
We basked in the hot sun, expanding physically and 
spiritually in the immensity of the uncrowded landscape. 
The air in this high altitude was bracing, but not cold. 
From time to time we passed prosperous flocks of sheep, 
spotted with lively black goats. Occasionally a lonely 
group of steers held out against the encroaching mutton. 
We shared with them the state of Texas. At Comstock, 
a flat and uninteresting one-street town, we lunched, for- 
getting entirely to make a four-mile detour to view the 
highest bridge in the world. All day, we bent our ener- 
gies to covering another half inch on the interminable 
map of Texas. We passed our last stopping place for 
the night. There was too much outdoors to waste; we 
decided to make our first camp in a live-oak grove some- 
body had described to us. 

With a sense of adventure, we purchased supplies for 
our supper and breakfast at a little town we reached at 
glowing sundown. The grocery was closed, but the 
amiable proprietor left his house and opened his store for 
us. Rumors of deep sand ahead disturbed us, and against 
the emergency we purchased for "seven bits" a shovel 
which came jointed, so that it could be kept in the tool 
box under the seat. The fact that it was so short that 
it could easily repose there at full length did not mar 
our delight at this novel trick. It had the elemental 
charm for us of a toy which will do two things at once, — a 
charm which in other eras accounted for the vogue of 



50 WESTWARD HOBOES 

poison rings, folding beds, celluloid collars and divided 
skirts. It was a perfectly useless little shovel, which 
made us happy whenever we looked at it, and swear 
whenever we used it. 

Thus fortified we sped on, and it soon became pitch 
dark, and a windy night. The country suddenly stood 
on end, and we coasted down a surprising little canyon, to 
emerge into a long black road tangled with mesquite on 
both sides. When we almost despaired of finding a 
suitable camp, we came casually on a snug little grove, 
and heard nearby the rush of a stream. The black sky 
was radiant with stars. Orion stood on his head, and so 
did the dipper, surrounded by constellations unfamiliar 
to our Northern eyes. 

In the chill dark we felt for a spot to pitch our tent. 
Spiky mesquite caught and tore our hair nets. Texas' 
millions of untenanted acres brooded over our human 
unimportance, till a charred stick or empty tin can, 
stumbled over in the dark, became as welcome a signal 
as Friday's footprint to Crusoe. Jointing our useless 
little spade, we dug a trench in the soft sand for our hips 
to rest in, hoisted our tent-rope over a thorny branch, 
folded blanket-wise our auto robes, undressed and crept 
inside our house. The lamps of the car gave us light to 
stow away our belongings, and its lumbering sides 
screened us from the road. With a sense of elation we 
looked at the circling stars through our tent windows, 
and heard the wind rise in gusts through the bare 
branches. The world becomes less fearsome with a roof 
over one's head. 

Dawn is the camper's hour of trial. I woke from a 



"DOWN BY THE RIO GRANBE" 51 

dream that a mountain Hon had entered our shelter, 
when Toby sat up excitedly. 

"I just dreamed a bear was trying to get in," she said. 
The coincidence was forboding, yet no menagerie ap- 
peared. Our aching hips, tumbled bedding and chilled 
bodies made us dread the long hours to breakfast. Toby 
hinted I had my share and more of the blanket. I had 
long entertained a similar suspicion of her, but was too 
noble to mention it. We portioned out the bedding 
afresh, vowed we never again would camp out, and in a 
moment it was eight o'clock of a cold, foggy morning. 

Yesterday the sun had been hot enough to blister 
Toby's cheek. Today was like a nor'-easter off Labrador. 
We were too cold to get up, and too cold to stay shiver- 
ing in the tent. It seemed a stalemate which might last 
a life-time, when suddenly indecision crystallized, ex- 
ploded, and we found ourselves on the verge of the ice- 
cold stream compromising cleanliness with comfort. 

How different seems the same folding stove viewed on 
the fifth floor of a sporting goods store in New York, 
and in the windy open. Piffling and futile it appeared 
to us, its natural inadequacy increased by our discovery 
that our fuel cans were locked in our trunk, and the lock 
had become twisted. It further appeared that most of 
our cooking outfit was interned in the same trunk. Ac- 
cordingly I tried to build a fire, while Toby took down 
the tent. Camp cooking is an art which I shall not 
profane by describing our attempts to get breakfast that 
bleak morning. The fire smouldered, but refused to 
break into the bright cheery crackle one hears about, 
and finally, untempted by the logs of green mesquite we 
hopefully fed it, went out entirely. We breakfasted on 



52 WESTWARD HOBOES 

the remains of last night's supper, washed down with a 
curious sticky mixture made of some labor-saving coffee 
preparation. Realizing that it took more than the outfit 
to make good campers, we went our subdued way. Our 
water bag bumped on the running-board, falling off fre- 
quently, and once we retraced ten muddy miles to 
retrieve it. 

It was not a lucky day. Our scant breakfast, lost 
waterbag and an unhappy lunch, our locked trunk and all, 
were but the precursors of a worse afternoon. The air 
was thick with yellow dust, and the western sky, sickly 
green, showed columns of whirling, eddying sand to 
right or left of us. Though we followed the Southern 
Pacific with dog-like devotion we lost our way once in a 
crooked maze of wagon tracks which led us to a swamp, 
and had to drive back ten miles to the nearest house to 
ask directions. To make up for lost time, in the bitter, 
reckless mood every driver knows, when nobody in the 
car dare speak to him, I raced for two hours at forty- 
five, through sandy, twisting tracks, with the car rocking 
like a London bus, and Toby clinging to the side, not 
daring to remonstrate, for it was she who had lost us 
our way. Each turn was a gamble, but the curves were 
just gentle enough to hold us to our course. 

We had every chance of making our night's stop before 
dark, when the air oozed gently out of the rear tire. 
Behind us a sandstorm rising in a shifting golden haze 
lifted twisted columns against the vivid green sky, over 
which dramatic dark clouds drove, while a spectacular 
sunset lighted the chains of cold dark blue and trans- 
parent mauve mountains on both sides. It was a glori- 
ous but ominous sight, and the tire meant delay. A flat 



"DOWN BY THE RIO GRANDE" 53 

tire, however, acts on Toby like a bath on a canary. The 
jack holds no mysteries for her, and tire rims click into 
place at sound of her voice. And our peculiar luck had 
halted us within a few yards of the only house we had 
passed all afternoon. Having learned that frail woman- 
hood need neither toil nor spin in Texas, I was for 
seeking aid, but Toby scorned help, and so painted the 
joys of independence that though it was hot and dusty 
and the sand storm threatened, I bent to her will. And 
the next moment, the key which locked engine, tool-box 
and spare tire, broke off in the padlock. As I had with 
unprecedented prudence bought a duplicate in New York, 
we were not completely stranded, but that, I mentioned 
bitterly to Toby, was no fault of hers. Only a cold chisel 
could release the spare tire, and we found we had none. 

*'I will now go for help," I said to Toby who was 
defiantly pretending to do something to the locked tire 
with a hammer, "as I should have at first but for your 
foolish pride." 

As stately as I might with hair blown by the wind, 
yellow goggles, leather coat and a purple muffler tied 
over my hat, I retreated toward the ranch-house. In the 
kitchen I startled a grizzled old couple sitting near the 
fire. When I explained our predicament, and begged 
the loan of a cold chisel the old man asked, "You two 
girls all alone?" 

When I admitted we were, he called to his son In the 
next room, "Horace, go see what you can do for the 
ladies." 

More bashful than most Texans, the lank Horace fol- 
lowed me in painful silence for a few yards. Then in a 
burst of confidence, he said, "When you come in just 



54 WESTWARD HOBOES 

now, I thought it was maw dressed up to fool us. Yes, 
sir, I sure did." 

My glimpse of his septuagenarian parent would not 
have led me to suspect her of such prankishness, but 
appearances are often deceitful. For all I knew she may 
have been just the life of the family, doubling up Horace 
and his paw in long writhes of helpless mirth at her 
impersonations. So I accepted the compliment silently 
and led our rescuer to the car. 

Once more I triumphed unworthily over Toby. For 
she had hinted that my fast driving had flattened the tire, 
but investigation revealed a crooked nail, — the bane of 
motoring in a cattle country. Horace proved most 
business-like in handling tools. In less than half an hour, 
bashfully spurred on by our admiration, he had cut the 
lock and helped us change the tire. Then he saw our 
sign, — and said it. As if it were a thought new-born to 
the ages, he smiled at his own conceit, and remarked, 
"You're a lawng ways ft'om home !" 

As Horace did not smoke, we drove away from the 
ranch-house eternally in his debt. We put him down to 
the credit of Texas, however, where he helped off-set 
sand-storms and mud holes, and added him to the fast 
growing list of cavaliers who had rescued us from our 
folly. The storm had died, and with it our bad luck had 
apparently departed, but when a day begins badly, it is 
never safe to predict until the car is bedded down for 
the night. According to a bad habit she has, Toby tele- 
scoped two paragraphs of the route card, skipping the 
middle entirely. Consequently we turned left when we 
should have gone right, — and found our front wheels 
banked where a road had been playfully altered by the 



"DOWN BY THE RIO GRANDE" 55 

wind to a mountain of sand. On all sides were waist- 
high drifts of fine white sea sand, from which the tops 
of mesquite bushes showed. We could not turn, so we 
tried running straight ahead, — and stuck. Twilight had 
fallen, and if there were a way out, it was no longer 
discernible. At what seemed a short half mile, a light 
gleamed from a house. Once more, I cravenly went for 
help, while the optimistic Toby began to shovel sand 
with our toy shovel. The half mile trebled itself, and 
still the house was no nearer. At last I came to the end, 
only to find that a wide canal separated us and the car 
from the road. I shouted across to two men in a corral, 
and at last they heard and came to the edge of the canal 
while I asked to borrow a rope. They debated a 
while, perhaps doubting my intentions, but finally threw 
a rope in the back of a little car, cranked it and, coming 
to the bank of the canal, helped me across. Unlike a 
Westerner who when he leaves a spot never fails to 
orient himself, I had not noticed in which direction I 
had struck out from the car. I fear my deliverers thought 
me a mild kind of incompetent when I confessed I had 
no idea where to find it: darkness and sand dunes com- 
pletely hid it from sight. But after some skirmishing 
about canal beds and bridges, we reached the broad 
shape looming up in the dark, and found that Toby had 
dug the car out, wrapped an old tire about the spinning 
back wheel, and driven it on firm ground. 

Our rescuers put us on the road to our night's objec- 
tive, and with mild patience told us we could hardly 
miss it, it being a straight road all the way. They did 
not compliment us too highly, for by the time Venus had 
risen we reached the hotel, kept by a sad, distrustful 



56 WESTWARD HOBOES 

one-eyed man from Maine, who in spite of twenty years' 
residence still abhorred Texas as a desert. He fed us 
liberally with baked beans and apple pie before showing 
us to a bare, clean little room furnished with a tin basin 
and a patchwork quilt. 

We were nearly dead. We had much with which to 
reproach luck and each other, but by mutual consent 
postponed it and sank into peaceful sleep in the lumpy 
bed. 

As somebody said, luck is a fickle dame. Having 
flouted us to her heart's content, she tagged docilely at 
our heels as we started for El Paso next morning. Two 
hundred miles away, the average run was ten hour's 
time, but we made it in eight and a half. The garage- 
man's wife's cousin was a dentist on Huntington Avenue, 
and the extraordinary coincidence drew her to us almost 
as by the bonds of kinship. She hurried her spouse into 
mending our tires promptly, and speeding us on our 
way with valuable directions. It was ten when we left, 
but moving westward into Rocky Mountain time saved 
us an hour. 

Once out of the village we encountered the enveloping 
desert again. Driving in those sandy tracks became a 
new sport, — we learned to make the sand skid us around 
corners without decreasing our speed; we could calculate 
with nicety when a perceptible drag on the wheels warned 
us to shift gears. And then they must be shifted in- 
stantly, for at a moment's delay the car sank deep, and 
mischief was done which only shoveling could undo. Once 
we found ourselves facing another car blocking the road, 
and sunk in thick, unpacked sand. We could not turn 
out, and the instant's stop put us in a like predicament. 



"DOWN BY THE RIO GRANDE" 57 

They wistfully asked us to pull them out, but as we were 
heavier than they, and would have made two obstacles 
instead of one in the road, we had to refuse the only 
help asked of us, who had so many times been the bene- 
ficiaries. We left them to an approaching mule team, 
after they had returned good for evil by pushing us out 
of the sand. For twenty miles we had hard going, but 
by spinning through the sand in low gear we escaped 
trouble. 

We were still in the desert, but serrated peaks with 
lovely outlines and stormy, snowy tops marched beside 
us the entire day. The aspect of the country became 
semi-tropical. The single varieties of cactus and century 
plants were increased to dozens. The ocotillo, some- 
times wrongly called octopus cactus, waved slender 
green fingers, on which a red bud showed like a rosy 
fingernail. The landscape warmed from lifeless gray to 
gold, mauve, blue and deep purple, and always on our 
left were the benign outlines of the blue Davis Moun- 
tains. We mounted higher and higher on a smooth 
orange road cut through the mountains and came out on 
a broad open highway with wide vistas. Close by, the 
mountains looked like huge heaps of black cinder and 
silt, but distance thinned them, as if cut from paper, into 
translucent lavender and blue, the edges luminous from 
the setting sun. 

Thirty miles out of El Paso we were astonished to 
find ourselves on a concrete road in perfect museum con- 
dition, on which in dismal file many cars crept city-ward 
at the discreet pace of fifteen miles an hour. It was the 
first bit of good road Toby had encountered for days 
but an uncanny something in the self-restraint of the El 



58 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Pasans on the only good road in Texas recalled Houston 
to us. We joined the funereal procession and arrived in 
the city without official escort. 

Mexico in this southwest corner is merged with Texas, 
making gay its vast grayness with bright spots of color 
and slouching figures, and suggesting other-world civiliza- 
tion by its Spanish street signs, and the frankness with 
which the Latin welcomes the world to the details of 
his daily life. The outskirts of the town were lined with 
one story 'dobe huts, and even more fragile shelters made 
of wattled reeds and mud. Forlorn little Mexican cafes, 
with temperance signs brazening it out above older and 
more convivial invitations, failed of their purpose ; their 
purple and blue doors were empty as the be-Sundayed 
crowds swarmed the streets. 

El Paso has its charms, but to us it was too modern 
and too large to mean more than a convenient place to 
sleep, shop and have the car overhauled, and the gumbo 
of Texas, now caked until it had to be chipped off with a 
.chisel, washed from its surface. "The old lady," as 
Toby nick-named the car, was to leave Texas as she had 
entered it, — with clean skirts. Once more we viewed 
her gray paint, which we had not seen for many a long 
day. She seemed to feel the difference from her former 
draggle-tailed state; she pranced a bit, and lightened by 
several hundred-weight of mud, shied around corners. 
We gave her her head as we passed the great smelters 
on the western edge of the town, whose smoke stacks cloud 
the rims of the mountains they are attacking, and slowly, 
slowly eating into. A smooth macadam road led us, — at 
last! — out of Texas. We were not sorry to leave, hos- 
pitably as we had been treated. Ahead lay greater 



"DOWN BY THE RIO GRANDE" 59 

miracles of nature than Texas could offer, and adven- 
ture no less. The great prairie of which in two weeks 
we had only nibbled one corner was behind us. We were 
fairly embarked on the main objectives of our journey. 



CHAPTER VII 

SANDSTORMS, BANDITS AND DEAD SOLDIERS 

ALONG a macadam road fringed with bright painted 
little Mexican taverns and shops, toward mid- 
afternoon we threaded our way, still defenseless "ladles," 
^ tempting fate. I mention what might seem an obvious 
fact, because the continuance of our unprotected state 
required strong powers of resistance against the offers 
of itinerant chauffeurs, anxious to get from somewhere to 
anywhere, filled like ourselves with spring stirrings to- 
ward Vagabondia, and seeing in our Red Duchess Incon- 
sequence an opportunity to get their itching hands on 
the wheel of a car which made of driving not a chore but 
an art. Even garage helpers, who now humbly washed 
wheels and handed tools to mechanics, hoping to end 
their apprenticeship by a bold stroke, besieged us with 
offers to chauffeur us for their expenses. 

As we were leaving El Paso, I returned to the car to 
find Toby conversing with a likely looking lad. This did 
not surprise me, for whenever I came back to Toby after 
five minutes' absence, I found her Incurable friendliness 
had collected from one to half a dozen strangers with 
whom she seemed on Intimate terms. But I was sur- 
prised to hear this lad urging us to take him as chauffeur 
as far as Tucson. His frank face and pleasant manner 
and an army wound seemed as good references as his offer 
of a bank president's guarantee. He wanted to go so 
badly! 

60 



BANDITS AND DEAD SOLDIERS 6i 

I have a failing, — one, at least, — of wanting to live 
up to what is expected of me. If a stranger with an 
expensive gold brick shows any real determination to 
bestow it on me for a consideration, he always finds me 
eager to cooperate, not because I do not know I am 
being gulled, but that I hate to cross him when his heart 
is set on It. Even in dour Boston It is congenitally hard 
for me to say "No," but in Texas where people smile 
painlessly and the skies are molten turquoise, it is next 
to impossible. Of course, we might take him as far as 
Tucson. We would have to give up driving, which we 
both loved. And pay his expenses. One of us would 
have to sit In the back seat, and be pulverized by jolting 
baggage. Still, it didn't seem right to leave our new 
friend at El Paso, which of all places bored him most. 
Would Toby be fair, and sit among the baggage half 
the time? 

Toby, I saw, was wondering the same of me. That 
decided it. Toby loves her comfort. I started to say, 
"I suppose we might," when she countered, "But we 
don't want any chauffeur." 

He looked hopefully at me, recognizing the weaker 
will. 

"No," I said, glad to agree with Toby, "that is per- J 
fectly true. In fact the whole point of our trip is to see | 
If we can get along without a chauffeur." — ■ ' 

It was the point; his wistful smile had been so per- 
suasive that I had almost forgotten it. Fortunately this 
reason convinced him without further arguing. He gave 
us directions about our route, and we left him, hat off, 
smiling and waving us bon voyage. 

Crossing a state line is an adventure In Itself. Even 



62 WESTWARD HOBOES 

with no apparent difference of landscape there seems 
inevitably a change, if only the slight psychological vari- 
ance reflected by any country whose people are marked 
off from their neighbors by differences however slight. 
The universe reflects many distinctions, I firmly believe, 
so subtle as to be undefined by our five senses, which we 
note with that sixth sense finer than any. Their intan- 
gible flavor piques the analyst to the nice game of de- 
scription. Hardly had we crossed the political line divid- 
ing sand and sage brush from sage brush and sand before 
we sensed New Mexico; — a new wildness, a hint of law- 
lessness, a decade nearer the frontier, Old Spain 
enameled on the wilderness. 

Or perhaps It was only Mrs. Flanagan, with her Mexi- 
v/can face and Irish brogue, when we stopped to buy gas, 
whose longing to have us for guests at her hotel made 
her paint the dangers of New Mexico with Hibernian 
fluency and Iberian guile. She thickened the coming 
twilight with sand storms, bandit shapes and murders. 

"Do ye know what a sandstor'rm is In these parts? 
Ye do not! I thought not! Last month a car left here 
to cross the desert to Deming, as ye're doing. Late 
afternoon it was, — just this hour, the wind In the same 
place. I war'rned thim to stay, but they w'd be gettin' 
along, — like yourselves." 

"And what became of them?" 

She gave us a look that froze the blood in our veins, 
despite the scorching wind from the edge of the desert. 

"Yes, what did become av thim? That's what many 
would like to know. They have not been heard of since!" 

"You would advise us to stay here for the night, 
then?" 



BANDITS AND DEAD SOLDIERS 63 

"Suit yourselves, suit yourselves. I see your rad-ay- 
tor's leakin'. 'Tis a serious thing to get out in that 
desert, miles fr'm anywhere wid an impty rad-ayator. 
What could ye do, an' night comin' on? Ye're hllpless! 
An' suppose ye get lost? The road's not marked. 'Tis 
a mass of criss-cross tracks leadin' iverywhere. At best, 
ye'd have to stop where ye are till mornin', if ye don't 
git too far lost ever t' find y'rselves again." 

Here entered a Gentleman from Philadelphia, a 
traveler for Quaker Oats, who listened to our debate 
with great interest. He was a brisk and businesslike 
young man, with a friendly brown eye and a brotherly 
manner. 

"If you ask mc, Mrs. Flanagan," he began diplomati- 
cally, "I'd advise the young ladies to take a chance. I 
think they can make it." 

Something in this advice, slightly stressed, implied a 
warning. Mrs. Flanagan with her swarthy Mexican 
features was not the most prepossessing landlady in the 
world, nor did a lonely roadhouse on the edge of the 
desert, with no other guests than ourselves, promise com- 
plete security. Tales of Swiss inns, and trap-doors 
yawning at midnight came to me, faintly conveyed by the 
young man's tones. She turned on him with ill-concealed 
anger. 

"It's nothin' to vie, go or stay. But here's a good 
hotel, — with a bath-room, even, — and there's night, and, 
sandy roads, and a stor'rm comin'. If ye had a man *■ 
wid ye, I'd say 'go on,' though it's not safe, even f'r a \ 
man. But bein' two ladies, I say stop here." ""^ 

We wavered, anxious to get on, but not to meet a 



64 WESTWARD HOBOES 

violent end. On the pretext of filling our water-bag, the 
Gentleman from Philadelphia took us aside. 

"Don't let Mrs. Flanagan fool you," he advised. 
"She only wants customers. I stayed here once," he 
twitched nervously, — "and I'd rather run the chance of 
being robbed and murdered. Not that I think that will 
happen to you." 

So we thanked him, nice brisk, friendly young man 
that he was, taking care not to incriminate him before 
the watchful Mrs. Flanagan, and bade that lady adieu. 
She gloomily wished us good luck, but it was apparently 
more than she dared hope. 

"Only last week, two men were held up and murdered 
by the Mexicans," she called after us. "Watch out for 
thim Mexicans, — they're a wicked bad lot." 

With the sky yellow-green from the gathering sand- 
storm, night coming on fast and her warning in our ears 
we struck out into our first desert with a sense of uneasi- 
ness, exhilarated a little by the warm beauty of the eve- 
ning. We seemed to have left all civilization behind, 
although after passing the last hamlet about nightfall, 
we had only forty-odd miles more to go. Never shall I 
forget the eerie charm of that drive. We saw not a 
soul. Occasionally a jack rabbit, startled as ourselves, 
leaped athwart the gleam of our lamps. Sometimes we 
wandered, in the pitchy black, from the guiding Southern 
Pacific into a maze of twisting trails. Sometimes we 
dived into a sudden arroyo, wrenching the car about just 
in time to stay with the road as it serpentined out again. 
When, now and again, a lonely light far off suggested a 
lurking bandit, we remembered with a homesick twinge 
the last words of Toby's mother, and wondered when we 



BANDITS AND DEAD SOLDIERS 65 

should get a chance to obey them. At four cross roads, 
the only guide post lay flat midway between the roads. 
We were obliged to guess at the most likely route. At 
last we came on the lights of Deming, five miles away, 
in the valley. We sighed with relief and moved toward 
them rapidly. 

And then a figure stepped out from a truck blocked 
beside the road, and a deep voice called "Stop a moment, 
please!" 

At that moment we sincerely wished ourselves back In 
Mrs. Flanagan's road house. Then, before Toby could 
get out the monkey wrench which was our sole weapon 
of defense, the voice changed shrilly on a high note, and 
we saw our bandit was a fourteen year old boy. He 
hopped aboard, never dreaming of the panic he had 
caused our bandit-beset minds, explaining that his bat- 
teries were out of order, and he must return to Deming. 
He added, naively, that his father owned the second best 
hotel in town, which he recommended if we failed to 
find a room in the best hotel. Then he swung off the 
car, and we went on to the Mecca of all Western 
voyagers, — a clean room, a hot bath, and a Harvey 
eating house. 

Like all of the Southwest, Deming was in the midst 
of an oil boom. Beneath the arid sand and cactus of 
long unwanted acreage, rich sluggish pools were in hid- 
ing, arousing the old gambling spirit of the West. It 
was a timid soul Indeed who had not invested In at least 
one well. In newspaper ofiices we saw the day's quota- 
tions chalked on blackboards, and in the windows of real 
estate agents were greeted by imposing sketches of Dem- 
ing Twenty Years from Now; no longer half a dozen 



66 • WESTWARD HOBOES 

streets completely surrounded by whirling sand, but a 
city of oil shafts and sky scrapers. We dropped into a 
hairdresser's to be rid of the desert dust, and found a 
group of ladies as busily discussing oil as were their hus- 
bands at the barber's. 

"Jim and I had five hundred dollars saved toward a 
house," confided one gray-haired gambler, "so we bought 
Bear Cat at a cent a share. If it goes to a dollar, like 
the land next it, we've got fifty thousand. If it don't, 
why, what can you get with five hundred anyway, these 
days?" 

"Way I do is to buy some of everything," said the 
hairdresser, rubbing the lather into my scalp. "Then 
you're sure to hit it right. I got a claim out to Stein's, 
and they're striking oil all around. When they find it 
on my claim," — (it is always "when," never "if") — I'm 
going to have a rope of pearls to my waist, and a Colonial 
Adobe house, — twenty rooms and a dance hall." 

We left the little town, hideous in its barrenness and 
dreaming of its future, the waitresses chewing the in- 
evitable toothpick, the two motion picture houses, the 
sandstorms, and the railway with its transcontinental 
standards, and hastened through to Arizona, leaving a 
more thorough inspection of New Mexico for spring. 
At the garage, we had one word of advice from a 
weather beaten old-timer, of whom we inquired as to 
roads. 

"The w'ust trouble ye'U have in a prohibition state is 
tire trouble." 

"Why should prohibition affect our tires?" 

"Dead soldiers." 

"Dead soldiers?" 



BANDITS AND DEAD SOLDIERS 67 

"Empty whiskey bottles." 

When we looked back half a mile down the road, he 
was still laughing at his wit. What would have hap- 
pened if the really good one about our being a long way 
from home had occurred to him I cannot picture. 

Two routes offered for Tucson; the short cut through 
Lordsburg and Willcox, and the longer way by Douglas 
and the Mexican border. When we inquired which route 
would have more interesting scenery, we had met invari- 
ably with a stare and a laugh. 

"Not much scenery, wherever you go, — sand and 
cactus! Just as much on one road as another." 

We therefore chose the shorter way, to learn later 
that the Douglas-Bisbe?^ route which we discarded was 
one of the most beautiful drives in the country. Yet we 
ourselves moved into a theater of loveliness. Saw- 
toothed ranges, high and stormy, snow-topped, shadowed 
our trail. The wide amphitheater of our golden valley 
was encircled with mountains of every size and color; 
blue, rosy, purple, and at sunset pure gold and trans- 
parently radiant. The gray sage turned at sun-down to 
lavender; mauve shadows lengthened on the desert 
floor; gorges of angry orange and red cliffs gave savage 
contrast to the delicate Alpine glow lighting white peaks; 
a cold, pastel sky framed a solitary star, and frosty air, 
thinned in its half-mile height to a stimulating sharp- 
ness, woke us keenly to life. We felt the enchantment 
that Arizona weaves from her gray cocoon toward sun- 
set, and wondered at eyes which could look on it all, and 
see only sand and cactus. Show them the unaccustomed, 
and they would doubtless have been appreciative enough. 
A green New England farm with running brooks and 



68 WESTWARD HOBOES 

blossoming orchards would have spelled Paradise to 
them, as this Persian pattern of desert did to us; beauty 
to the parched native of Arizona is an irrigation ditch, 
bordered by emerald cottonwoods. 

If I tint these pages with too many sunsets, it is not 
from unawareness of my weakness, but because without 
them a description of Arizona does not describe. In 
the afternoon hours, between four and eight, the country 
wakes and glows, and has its moment, like a woman 
whose youth was plain but whom middle age has touched 
with charm and mystery. Not to speak of the sunsets of 
Arizona, till the reader is as saturated with their glory 
as is the traveler, is to leave the heart of the country 
unrevealed. 

From Willcox to Lordsburg we realized there was 
more than jest in the remark of our old-timer concerning 
"dead soldiers." All the way through that uninhabited 
desert, we picked our road through avenues of dis- 
carded flat bottles of familiar shape, turning all shades 
of amethyst under the burning rays of the sun. It is an 
odd effect of the sun on glass here in the desert that it 
slowly turns a deeper and deeper violet. The desert- 
wise can tell the date a bottle was discarded from its hue. 
I was told that one man made a fortune by ripening 
window-glass in this manner, and selling it to opticians 
at a fancy price. It may have been a similar industry 
which lined our path with empty bottles. It must have 
been so, for Arizona had been "dry" for three years. 

Even the lakes were dry. When we met with the 
term "dry lake" in the guide book, we set it down as 
another flight of the fanciful creature who had composed 
its pages, but soon we came upon it. Four miles and 



BANDITS AND DEAD SOLDIERS 69 

more we drove over the bottom of a lake now not even 
damp, making deep tracks in the white sand. Dry rivers 
were later to become commonplace, but we were children 
of Israel but this once. Suddenly beyond us in the 
distance, through a heat where no drop of water could 
live, we saw a sparkle and a shimmer of cool blue, and 
cottonwoods reflected in wet, wavering lines. Our dry 
lake had turned wet! Mountain peaks rose and floated 
on its surface, — and not till they melted and skipped 
about could I believe Toby's assertion that we were gaz- 
ing on a mirage. When she focussed her camera upon 
the mirage I scoffed loudly. Tales of travelers in the 
desert had early rooted in my none too scientific mind 
the idea that a mirage is a subconscious desire visually 
projected, like the rootless vines which climb the air at 
the command of Hindu fakirs. When our finished print 
showed a definite, if faint, outline of non-existent hills, 
my little world was slightly less shaken than if Toby had 
produced a photograph of an astral wanderer from the 
spirit world. I do not like to look at it. It seems like 
black magic. 

The desert, bleached dazzling white under an after- 
noon sun, seemed shorn of all the mysteries and appre- 
hensions with which the previous night and Mrs. Flanagan 
had enveloped it. Now it lay stark and unromantic, 
colorless in a blare of heat. We were only a few miles 
from Tucson, when we mounted a hill, and poised a 
second, looking down on a horseshoe canyon. Our road, 
narrow and stony, threaded the edge of it, — a sharp 
down grade, a quick curve at the base, and a steady 
climb up. As we turned the brow of the hill and passed 
a clump of trees hiding the view of the bottom, ahead, 



70 WESTWARD HOBOES 

directly across the road and blocking all passage stood 
a car. I put on the brakes sharply, and our car veered 
toward the edge and wavered. How stupid to leave a 
car directly across a dangerous road on a down grade! 
This was my first reaction. Then we saw two men, with 
the slouch that marks the Westerner, step from behind 
their car, and await our approach. Even while I con- 
centrated on avoiding turning into the ditch, their very 
quiet manner as they awaited us arrested attention. It 
was not stupidity which made them choose to alight at 
that spot. It was an ideally clever place for a hold-up ! 
Concealed itself, it commanded a view of the entire 
canyon, and would catch a car coming from either direc- 
tion at lowered speed. These men were not waiting our 
approach for any casual purpose; something too guarded 
and watchful, too tensely alert, lay taut beneath their 
easy slouch. The elder, a bearded thick-set man, care- 
lessly held his hand on his hip pocket, as they do in all 
Western novels. The taller and younger man stepped 
into the middle of the road, and raised a hand to stop us. 

"Toby," I said in a low voice, "this looks serious." 

"Bandits!" said Toby, her tone confirming my sus- 
picions. 

"Get out the monkey wrench, and point it as if it were 
a gun. I'll try to crowd past the car and up the hill." 

"If we only had the ammonia pistol," sighed Toby, 
murderously, getting the wrench and cocking it. 

A gentle voice tinged with the sharp edge of com- 
mand came from the younger man. "Better stop a 
minute, lady!" 

We stopped, entirely contrary to our hastily made 
plans. Something in his level tone, and in a quick little 



BANDITS AND DEAD SOLDIERS 71 

gesture the man behind him made, changed our minds. 

Without removing his hand from his hip the other 
man, who I quickly decided was the more desperate 
character of the two, strolled about our car with an 
appraising and well satisfied look. At that moment we 
felt we were indeed a long, long ways from home. I 
began to calculate the time it would take to walk to 
Tucson, — hampered, possibly, by a bullet wound. Then 
he pulled open his coat, and a gleam of metal caught the 
sunlight. 

"I'm the sheriff of Pima County," he said, briefly. 

I did not believe him. I put my foot on the gas, and 
tightened my grip on the wheel, measuring the road 
ahead and calculating the slight chance of crowding past 
his car and up the steep hill ahead. 

"Please show us your badge again, if you don't mind." 

He gave us a full view of it this time. It looked 
genuine enough, — a silver star, not quite so large as the 
planet Jupiter, with rays darting therefrom, and Pima 
printed on it in bold letters, — a staggering affair, calcu- 
lated to inspire respect for law and order. 

"Were we speeding?" Toby faltered, remembering 
Houston. 

"We're making a little search," he replied very 
crisply. 

"Search,— for what?" 

"Booze, for one thing," said the lank young man. 
The other did not waste words. 

It was evident from their manner they expected to 
find what they were hunting for. They walked about 
and punched our tires, darkly suspicious. We could not 
have felt more guilty if we had been concealing the 



72 WESTWARD HOBOES 

entire annual output of Peoria. I heard Toby gasp, and 
knew she was wondering what Brattle St. would say. 

"Where did you come from?" asked the sheriff. 

"Benson," we replied, mentioning the last town we 
had passed through. 

"Ah !" Evidently a highly incriminating place to 
come from. They proceeded to examine our suit-cases 
thoroughly. 

"I hate to search ladies," said the sheriff, in brief 
apology, "but if ladies will smuggle booze into Pima 
County, it has to be done." 

At that moment his assistant caught sight of our 
knobby looking auto trunk. 

"Ah !" Such a queer shaped trunk was beyond ex- 
planation. I handed over the keys in silence. They 
made a grim search, with no sign of unbending until 
they came to our funny little folding stove. Then the 
sheriff permitted a short smile to decorate his official 
expression, and I knew the worst was over. A moment 
later, the lank young man discovered our number-plate. 

"Say! Are you from Massachusetts, lady?" 

"Boston." 

I pass over his next remark. The reader has heard it 
before, and so had we. The air was cleared, and so 
were we. To the sheriff of Pima County and his deputy, 
Boston meant only Susan B. Anthony and Frances E. 
Willard. They had evidently never heard of Ward 
Eight. 

We passed on, amid apologies, to Tucson. Once 
more the spectres evoked by Mrs. Flanagan had been 
laid. Artistically, it was a pity. The canyon made a 



BANDITS AND DEAD SOLDIERS 73 

perfect setting for a hold-up. As such I recommend It 
to the outlaws of Pima County. 

As we drove into the city, acquitted of boot-legging, a 
wonderful odor stole to our nostrils. We sniffed, looked 
at each other and sniffed again. We were entering Tuc- 
son on the historic afternoon when sixty thousand dollars 
worth of liquor had been poured relentlessly into the 
gutters of the old town, — a town which a generation 
ago had stood for wild drinking and picturesque law- 
lessness. 



CHAPTER VIII 

TUCSON 

T 11 THAT school child reading of the Pilgrim's land- 
V V ing, of Montcalm's Defeat, and the Revolution- 
ary War, but thinks he is learning the whole of Amer- 
ica's color.ial history? Studying from text-books east- 
ern professors wrote about the time when the Missis- 
sippi held back the lurking savage, he skips over the brief 
mention of Coronado and Cortez as of sporadic ex- 
plorers who kindly lessened home work by changing the 
map as little as possible. He reads of Independence 
Hall in Philadelphia, and Faneuil Hall in Boston, and 
the Old South Church. Yet in the land of Coronado, 
the uncharted wilderness his mind pictures, rise the white 
turrets and dome of a Mission beside which the Old 
South is as ordinary as a country Audrey compared with 
a lady of St. James' court. Who of his elders can blame 
him, who pride themselves on their familiarity with the 
cloisters of San Marcos and Bruges, Chartres and the 
ruined giant Rheims, and have heard vaguely or not at 
all, of the pearl set by devout Spaniards against the blue 
enamel sky of Arizona and dedicated to San Xavier? 

As it lies relaxed on the tinted desert carpet, dome and 
tower so light that they seem great white balloons, kept 
from floating away into the vivid sky by substantial 
anchors of buttress and arch, compare it with the neat 
smugness of our Bulfinch and Georgian meeting-houses 
in New England. Even at its best, the latter style has 

74 



TUCSON 75 

the prim daintiness of an exquisite maiden lady, while 
the Mission is like the Sleeping Beauty, with white arm 
curved above her head, relaxed and dreaming. Without 
claiming to speak, with authority, I consider San Xavier 
the loveliest ecclesiastical building in America. Cer- 
tainly its obscurity should be broken more frequently 
than now by pilgrimages, its outlines as familiar in school 
histories as Independence Hall or Washington Crossing 
the Delaware. 

In its fashion this mission personifies a sort of Inde- 
pendence Hall of the first Americans, — the Papagoes, 
who might be termed Red Quakers. Founded in 1687 
by Father Kino, a Jesuit priest of the royal house of 
Bavaria, the original mission suffered from Indian re- 
bellions, Apache massacres, and the expulsion of the 
Jesuits. Abandoned for awhile, it fell a century later to 
the Franciscans, who erected the present building, which 
represents the almost single-handed conquest by some 
eighteenth century padre of engineering difficulties which 
might well baffle a Technology graduate. It became the 
Rheims of the Papagoes, Christians, in their peculiarly 
pantheistic fashion, since the advent of Father Kino. 
Mildest of all Indians, In their whole history they went 
on the war-path but once, — after hostile Apaches had 
thrice desecrated their loved San Xavier and murdered its 
priests. The Apaches never returned. 

Nine miles from Tucson, on a wide plain which the 
Santa Rita mountains guard, the Mission lies cloistered, 
exquisite souvenir of the Moors and Spaniards, its arched 
gateway a legacy from Arabia. Little Papago huts of 
wattled reeds and mud, scarcely different In construction 
from prehistoric cliff-dwellings, lie scattered over the 



/ 



76 WESTWARD HOBOES 

plain. Out in the sunshine, Papagoes in blue overalls 
and brilliant bandas mended tools or drove a primitive 
plow, and the women caught the wind and the light in 
billowing scarves of purple, green and red. They smiled 
broadly and sheepishly at us, proudly exhibiting blinking, 
velvet-eyed progeny in wicker cradles, who bore such 
good Catholic names as Clara, Juan, Madelina. Some 
women were busy covering reeds with split yucca fiber, 
intertwined with the black of the devil's claw, a vicious 
curving seed-pod which more than once had clamped 
about our feet in our desert travel. Others baked round 
loaves in rude outdoor ovens of mud. Across the plains, 
sheep grazed, and an occasional horse: the omnipresent 
mongrel beloved of the Indian snarled and yapped as we 
drove to the Mission doorway. 

Here we stepped into another world. An Irish 
Mother Superior welcomed us, her soft brogue tem- 
pered to the hushed stillness within, and offered us trays 
of cold milk. Hers was the mellow presence which long 
ripening in cloisters sometimes, — not always — brings. 
Walls four feet thick shut out the yellow sunlight, save 
where it fell In dappled patterns on the flags, or filtered 
through green vines covering open arches. 

The central dome of the mission roofs the nave of the 
church. Inside, it lights the obscurity with a rich gleam 
of gold leaf, put on with barbaric lavlshness. Paintings 
and frescoes of Biblical stories add to the ornate effect; 
painted-faced Holy Families In gauze and lace stare 
from their niches unsurprised; two great carved lions of 
Castile, brought In sections from Old Spain, guard the 
altar treasures. Rightly did the Jesuits and Franciscans 
gage the psychology of their dusky converts. Never 



TUCSON 77 

eliminating the old religion, but grafting to it the vigor- 
ous shoots of the new, they made it appeal to the In- 
dian's love of pomp and color. Pictorial representations 
of the saints bridged the gap between the two languages, 
and the glitter of the decadent Renaissance style was 
gilded the brighter to attract the curious minds of the 
red children. At least two artists of some gifts deco- 
rated the nave, for two styles are apparent. One artist 
was fairly unimaginative and conventional; the other 
painted with a daintier flourish his flying angels, who 
float about In their curly ribbons with a Peruglnlan ele- 
gance, hinting too, in their fragility, of the more perfect 
creatures of Fra Angellco. Certainly, this latter artist 
had a touch, but who he was or what he did so far from 
the studios which trained him, I do not think is known. 

The Mother Superior led us out of the church and into 
the courtyard flanked by what were once cells for the 
resident monks, and are now schoolrooms for young 
Papagoes, intoning lessons to a sharp-faced nun. At the 
end of the court a graceful gateway, triple-arched, harked 
back again to Old Spain, and thence more remotely to 
Arabia, for it is a copy of the "camel gates," which at 
sunset closed their middle arch, and left tardily arriving 
camel trains to crawl through side openings. It is a far 
cry from Arabia to Arizona, yet there are camels in 
Arizona, too, according to a creditable account. But 
that story belongs elsewhere. 

Framed through low white arches of the courtyard 
walls, against which clusters of china berries make 
brilliant splashes of color, are exquisite pictures of eme- 
rald green pastures leading out to white topped crests. 
Toward sunset these peaks turn rosy, then red; the 



78 WESTWARD HOBOES 

somber, barren hills below them become deep purple, 
then chilly blue. Over the plain, mingling with the 
tinkle of sheep bells float the silver notes of the chimes 
brought from Old Spain, and little by little darkness 
falls, and the fluttering veils of the Papago women 
vanish from the scene. 

Tucson is perhaps the most liveable town In Arizona. 
It boasts several good hotels, macadam boulevards, a 
railway station so attractively designed and placed it 
might be taken for a museum or library, an embryo sub- 
way, and a university. The last may account for an 
atmosphere of culture not perhaps remarkable in the 
West, yet not always found in a provincial town of the 
size. 

The University of Arizona is situated in the newer 
part of the town. Its buildings are of classic architec- 
ture, well proportioned, their simple, dignified lines suited 
to the exuberance of nature surrounding them. Still 
new, its landscape gardening has been happily planned 
in a country which aided the gardener rapidly to achieve 
his softening effect. The grounds boast two attractions 
Northern colleges must forego, an outdoor swimming 
pool and a cactus garden, in which all known varieties of 
cactus grown in the state are found. The University 
necessarily lacks some advantages of older colleges, but 
it owns a rare collection of Indian basketry and pottery. 
The well-known archeologist. Prof. Byron Cummings, 
who was the first white man to behold the Rainbow 
Bridge in Utah, in winter has the chair of archeology, 
and in summer leads classes through the cliff dwellings 
and prehistoric ruins which stud the Four Corners of the 
United States. 




DOORWAY OF .SAX XA\ lER 1)E-L BAC, TUCSON. 



TUCSON 79 

The old part of the town, where lived the "first fami- 
lies" who settled the district when the Apaches raided, 
and the "bad man" frequented saloons, and made shoot- 
ings and lynchings common in the sixties and seventies, 
has lost many of its thick-walled, verandahed houses in 
the face of the builder's fervor for bungalows. The 
inhabitants who remember picturesque and bloody tales 
of the frontier days, and even participated in them, are 
still in hale middle age. 

Viewing the electric lights, the neat and charmingly 
designed bungalows, the tramways and excellent ga- 
rages, the cretonne lined coupes, Toby and I decided we 
had discovered the West too late. We had before us 
only a denatured California, and were, indeed, feelingly 
reminded of that fact by the increasing numbers of 
Native Sons we encountered. Some of the benefits long 
enjoyed by the Golden State have seeped across the 
boundaries, and Arizona has become canny, and in the 
health resort zone which embraces Tucson has learned 
to add in the climate at the top of every bill. But 
Arizona's boom is but a feeble pipe when a real Native 
Son begins. Some of these have, for unknown reasons, 
migrated to Arizona, and whenever such an individual, 
male or female, saw our sign, after the customary greet- 
ing, he opened fire, "On your way to California?" 

"No." 

Following blank astonishment, "No?" 

"No." 

Recovery, "Oh, — just come from there?" 

"No." 

"No?" 

"No." 



8o WESTWARD HOBOES 

'And you're not going to California?" 

"No." 

"Why aren't you going?" 

"Because we want to do this part of the country." 

"But there's nothing here but sand. Look here, you 
can go to California just as well as not. You'll get a 
climate there. You won't have any trouble with the 
roads, if that is what is troubling you. The roads are 
wonderful, — nothing like here. You'll find a live state 
across the border, — only ninety miles by Yuma. A little 
sand — then good roads all the way." 

"Yes, but we don't want good roads. We want to 
stay in Arizona." 

A long pause, "You want to stay in Arizona?" 

"Yes." 

"But California is only ninety miles away." 

"But we like Arizona better." 

Wounded incredulity. "Oh, you can't. You've got 
sand and cactus here, — just a blamed desert. And look 
at California, the garden spot of the world. Roads like 
boulevards, scenery, live towns, everything you've got in 
the East, and a climate! Now, I tell you. Here's what 
you do. I know California like a book, born there, thank 
God. You let me plan your route. You go to San 
Diego, work up the coast, see the Missions, Los An- 
geles, San Francisco, — say, that's a town, — and then up 
to Seattle. You'll have good roads all the way." 

"Yes, but we were planning an entirely different trip. 
Arizona and New Mexico, the Rainbow Bridge, then 
north to Yellowstone and Glacier Park." 

"Well, it's lucky I saw you in time. You go straight 
to Needles, — you can't miss the road, marked all the 



TUCSON 8 1 

way. Good-by and good luck. You'll like California." 
Like Jacob with the angel they wrestled with us and 
would not let us go. After several such encounters, we 
learned to recognize the Native Son at sight, and when 
he opened with "Going to California?" we would reply, 
with the courage of our mendacity, "Just left." It saved 
us hours daily. 



CHAPTER IX 

TWENTY PER CENT GRADES, FORTY PER CENT VANILLA. 

COMPLICATIONS arose when we reached Tucson. 
We planned to see endless places but most of 
them, at an altitude of a half mile to a mile and a half, 
could be reached only by roads still under ten feet of 
snow. The district ridged by the White Mountains was 
completely cut off, its unbridged rivers flooded, and its 
few highways covered by snow-drifts thrice the height 
of a man. The same conditions prevailed from Flag- 
staff to Winslow, and while Southern Arizona picked 
oranges and basked in the sun, the Grand Canyon was in 
the grip of winter. It became necessary, therefore, 
to find a ranch in which to hibernate for a month, till 
Arizona highways became less like the trains in the time 
table Beatrice Hereford describes, where "those that 
start don't get there, and those that get there don't 
start." 

Tucson being apparently devoid of "dude" ranches, 
we decided to move on to the center of the state until we 
found what we sought. The shorter and more obvious 
route by the Old Spanish Trail, through Florence to 
Chandler and Phoenix, we discarded for the "new state 
highway" to Winkleman and Globe, thence over the 
Apache Trail to the Roosevelt Dam, and Chandler. 
Globe maintains all contact with the world by the Apache 
Trail : in the huge, irregular quadrilateral between Globe 

82 



TWENTY PER CENT GRADES 83 

and Phoenix, through which the Mescal and Pinal ranges 
stray, there Is no other road. The difficulty of travel 
in Arizona is not that the state has no roads, as has 
been unjustly claimed, but that the roads make no pre- 
tense of linking together the widely scattered towns. 

We had one other reason for taking the Apache Trail 
besides its widely advertised beauty. Everyone who 
mentioned It spoke in bated breath of Its difficulty, "the 
steepest and most dangerous road In Arizona, — you two 
women surely can't mean to go over it alone? It's 
dangerous even for a man." 

Whatever inward qualms these remarks evoked, they 
made us only more curious to try our luck. We had 
already learned that taken a car-length at a time, no road 
is as bad as it seems in toto, and few situations develop 
which admit of no solution. As for doing without a 
man, we found Providence always sent what we needed, 
in any crisis we could not meet ourselves. In Tucson we 
found two old friends, Miss Susan and Miss Martha, 
who shared our brash confidence In ourselves enough to 
consent to go with us as far as Phoenix. 

One can travel north from Phoenix to the Dam, then 
east to Globe, or reverse the route. Most people con- 
sider the Trail more magnificent going north and east, 
but circumstances forced us to take the opposite course. 
A month later, we made the reverse journey, so that we 
had opportunity to judge both for ourselves. It is hard 
to weigh splendor against splendor. No matter which 
direction you take, you will be constantly looking back 
to snatch the glory behind you, but on the whole, if I 
could travel the Apache Trail but once, I should start 
from Phoenix. 



84 WESTWARD HOBOES 

We left town In a raw, bleak wind which became 
bleaker as we circled the small hills about Oracle. For 
fifteen miles we had fine macadam, though occasionally 
torn with deep chuck-holes. Then we left the made 
road, and meandered up and down bumpy paths through 
forests of the finest, most varied cacti we had seen any- 
where. Steep slopes were covered with the giant sahuara, 
standing bolt upright and pointing a stiff arm to heaven, 
like an uncouth evangelist. Demon cholla forests with 
their blurred silver gray haze seemed not to belong to 
this definite earth, but to some vague, dead moon. 
Among them wavered the long listless fingers of the 
ocotilla, and the many-eared prickly pear clambered over 
the sands like some strange sea plant. In this world of 
unreal beauty, tawny dunes replaced green slopes, and 
such verdure as appeared was pale yet brilliant, as if 
lighted by electricity. 

Climbing steadily, we passed Winkleman, a little, very 
German settlement. Nobody had suggested we should 
find the scenery anything out of the ordinary, though 
many had said the road was good, — an outright and 
prodigious mis-statement of fact. One temperate per- 
son had mentioned it might be "well worth our while." 
If that same lady were to meet Christ she would probably 
describe him as "a very nice man." The scenery was 
grand; it progressed from grand to majestic, and from 
majestic to tremendous. The raw wind, with its ensuing 
flurry of cold rain had died down, and the sun was out. 
Threading westward into one mountain pass after an- 
other, we soon were making our cautious way along a 
narrow shelf which constantly wound higher and higher 
above the rushing, muddy Gila River. We had come 



TWENTY PER CENT GRADES 85 

suddenly upon magnificence minus macadam where we 
had been led to expect macadam minus magnificence. 

Suddenly looking down, I decided the scenery was 
becoming altogether too grand. Far below, the Gila 
was a tiny thread, getting tinier every moment. On the 
very edge of the fast deepening canyon hung the road, 
with neither fence nor wall between us and eternity, via 
the Gila River. As we climbed, the road narrowed till 
for a dozen miles no car could have passed us. Regu- 
larly it twisted in such hairpin curves that our front 
tires nearly pinched our back tires as we made the turn. 
Instead of being graded level, the road rose or fell so 
steeply in rounding corners that the car's hood com- 
pletely concealed which way the road twisted. If we 
went left while the road turned right we should collide 
with a cliff; if the road turned left and we right, we 
should be plunged through space, so it behooved us to 
get our bearings quickly. 

Once, fortunately at a wide place, we met a team of 
four mules. Ignorant of the Arizona law requiring 
motorist to give animals the inside of the road, we drew 
up close to the cliff, while the faithful mules went half 
over the crumbly edge, but kept the wagon safely on the 
trails. I began to notice a strange vacuum where once 
had been the pit of my stomach. Ordinarily I cannot 
step over a manhole without my knees crumpling to 
paper, and that thread of a stream a mile, or probably 
only about 500 feet below, gave me an acute attack of 
"horizontal fever." 

At that giddy moment, on the very highest spot, I 
essayed to turn a sharp corner down grade, where a 
ledge threw us well over to the edge of the curve, and I 



86 WESTWARD HOBOES 

found my foot brake would not hold. I tried the emer- 
gency. It, too, had given way from the constant strain 
put on it. We were already in "first," but even so, at 
that grade our heavy car would coast fifteen or twenty 
miles an hour. The road ahead switch-backed down, 
down, down. I calculated we could make two turns 
safely and that the third would send us spinning over 
the chasm. I felt my face undergo what novelists call 
"blanching." I stiffened, and prepared myself — no time 
to prepare the others — for the wildest and probably the 
last drive of my life. And then a weak voice from 
behind called: "Stop the car, please! I feel ill." 

Poor Miss Martha had been suffering all day from a 
sick headache, but had gallantly admired the scenery be- 
tween whiles. Now, oblivious to scenery, with closed eyes 
and wan face, she waited for the dreadful motion to cease. 
I wanted to, but was in no position to obey her reasonable 
request. As a drowning man sees everything, to my 
sharp mental vision of the car spinning over and over 
toward the final crash, I added a picture of poor Miss 
Martha, bewildered all the way down, and too ill to do 
anything but wonder why the car would not stop. I lost 
fear in a glow of altruistic sympathy. Then, deciding 
something had to be done quickly, I ran the "old lady's" 
nose into a ledge. The left mudguard bent, but we 
stuck. 

"The car's going over!" exclaimed Miss Susan, much 
surprised. 

"No, it isn't," I said, rather crossly. As well as two 
paper knees permitted, I got out, and explained about 
the brakes. Relieved that motion had ceased. Miss 



TWENTY PER CENT GRADES 87 

Martha sank back blissfully closing her eyes. The others 
had not realized our danger. 

It was evident the brakes must be tightened if we were 
to reach the bottom of the canyon alive. Neither Toby 
nor I knew how to tighten brakes, except that in the 
process one got under the car. Accordingly, as diagnos- 
tician, I crawled beneath, and in a few moments found 
a nut which looked as if it connected with the brake, 
while Toby, who is exceedingly clever with tools, and 
something of a contortionist, managed to tighten it. We 
tried the foot brakes. They held! Never had we 
known a prouder moment. The incident gave us cour- 
age to meet new contingencies, and never again did I 
experience just that sick feeling of helplessness of a 
moment before. While Toby was still beneath the 
wheels, a horn sounded, and another machine climbed 
around the bend. Miss Susan flagged it with her sweater 
just in time. Two men emerged, rather startled at the 
encounter, and asked how they were to pass. As the 
ascending car, they had the right of way, and unlike the 
courteous mules. Intended to keep it. I could not blame 
them for not wanting to back down hill, — neither did I. 
I could not tell whether my knees would ever be "practi- 
cal" again. The road was little more than ten feet wide, 
and very crooked. I am usually good at backing, but 
sometimes I become confused, and turn the wrong way, 
— and I hated to spoil the view by backing into it. After 
some prospecting, we discovered a little cubby-hole at 
the third turn down. At the rate of an inch a minute 
we reached It. The chauffeur of the other car gave us 
valuable advice, — never to use our foot brake on moun- 
tains, but instead to shut off ignition, shift to first gear. 



88 WESTWARD HOBOES 

and if we still descended too fast, use the emergency 
brake at intervals. If the grade were so steep as to 
offset all these precautions (as actually happened later, on 
several occasions) the foot brake could be alternately 
pressed and released. 

With all the Rockies before us, this information gave 
us back the confidence which we had momentarily lost 
while we poised brakeless over the Gila. Before reach- 
ing home, we were to travel over many such roads, for 
we motored along the spine of the Rockies from Mexico 
to Alberta, but never again did "horizontal fever" attack 
us virulently. This "fine state highway" from Winkle- 
man to Globe proved as dangerous a road as we were 
to meet, and being the first encountered after the plains 
of Texas and the deserts of New Mexico, it especially 
terrified us. A month later we traversed it without a 
quiver. 

Once more into the valley, and into Globe as the lights 
came out. Globe runs up-hill at the base of a huge, dark 
mountain, full of gold and copper and other precious 
metals. Cowboys and bright-robed Apaches still walk 
the streets. We knew the town was busy and prosper- 
ous, but as usual the Arizonans had forgotten to men- 
tion its scenic value, which any hotel proprietor back 
home would have envied. The air, too, blows bracing 
and keen, and the town's whole atmosphere is brisk, — 
except at the drug-store, where I dropped in to shop for 
a cake of soap, and spent an hour, — a delicious, gossipy 
hour. The druggist evidently had a weakness for high- 
priced soaps which he had indulged lavishly in the 
seclusion of Globe, more for esthetic pleasure than hope 
of commercial gain. We were kindred souls, for Toby 



TWENTY PER CENT GRADES 89 

and I had developed a mania for soap-collecting, and at 
each new hotel pilfered soap with joy. We discussed 
the relative merits of French and domestic soaps, of 
violet and sandalwood, of scented and unscented. He 
told me the kind his wife used, and as an indirect com- 
pliment I bought a cake of it. 

And so, to bed, and to dream I had driven the car to 
the third floor of our hotel, when the proprietor dis- 
covered it, and ordered me to take it away. They 
refused us the elevator and I was forced to bump the 
great leviathan downstairs, one step at a time. How I 
labored to keep the unwieldy bulk from getting beyond 
control ! I awoke to find both feet pressed hard against 
the footboard of the bed. 

At the garage next morning we heard more of the 
dangers of the Apache Trail. Considering nobody had 
thought the dangers of the Winkleman road important 
enough to mention, I became extremely dubious that we 
would reach Roosevelt Dam alive. Still, the weather was 
charming, blue sky and hot sun. I could not believe the 
Lord would let anyone die on such a day. 

As if the sun were not bright enough, fields of golden 
stubble made the scene dance with light. A herd of 
Holsteins lent a dash of black and white, and the far 
hills across the Gila were pink, mauve, orange, lemon, 
— any preposterous color but those a normal hill should 
be. 

We were following the trail over which Coronado and 
his army rode when, incidentally to their search for gold, 
they made history in 1540. Over this same road, for 
thousands of years, native Americans, Toltecs, cliff- 
dwellers, Apaches, friars, and forty-niners, have 



90 WESTWARD HOBOES 

traveled to satisfy blood-lust and gold-lust, religion, 
fanaticism, and empire building. Until the Roosevelt 
Dam let in a flood of tourists, few traveled it except on 
grim business. The romance of a thousand years of 
tense emotions experienced by resolute men haunts that 
lovely sun-flooded valley. 
J Mormons still follow the Trail, recognizable by their 
long, greasy beards. One such passed us, driving an 
ancient Ford, — the very one, I should say, in which 
Brigham Young came to Utah. It showed faded rem- 
nants of three coats of paint, white, blue and black. On 
the radiator rested a hen coop containing several placid 
biddies. We tacitly ignored a murmur from Toby about 
"an eggs-hilarating drive." A dozen children, more or 
less, sat beside the Mormon. Attached to the Ford was 
a wagon, drawn by six burros, with a burro colt trotting 
beside, and atop the wagon, under a canvas roof, a few 
more women and children. We were too appalled to 
notice whether the Ford pulled the burros, or the burros 
pushed the Ford. Following the prairie schooner came 
a rickety wagon, piled with chairs, stoves and other 
domestic articles. Last of all came a house. It was, to 
be sure, a small house, but considering that the car was 
only working on two cylinders, one could not reasonably 
expect more. 

Later we passed a man on horseback, wearing two 
sombreros, one atop the other, with a certain jaunty de- 
fiance. Whether he did it from ostentation, for warmth, 
to save space, to keep out moths, or was just moving, we 
could not guess. Or he may have been a half-crazy 
prospector, whose type we began to recognize, — old, 
vague-eyed men with strange beards, speech curiously 



TWENTY PER CENT GRADES 91 

halting, from long disuse, and slow, timid manners, — 
riding a burro or rack-of=bones horse up a side trail. In 
every section of the Rockies one meets these ancient, 
unwashed optimists, searching in unlikely crannies, more 
from life-long habit than In the hope of striking It rich. 
So long have they lived remote from human beings, that 
If a gold mine suddenly yielded them the long sought 
fortune and compelled them to return to the world, they 
would die of homesickness. 

When Coronado marched over the Apache Trail, he 
saw far above him a walled town built in the recessed 
cliffs, whose protective coloring made It nearly invisible 
to the casual passerby. The Spaniard, seeking the Seven 
Cities of Cibola, Imagined he had discovered one of their 
strongholds, but when he rushed up the steep path, more 
breathless, doubtless in his heav^y armor than we four 
centuries later in our khaki suits, he found the swallow's 
nest deserted, and the birds flown, — where and for what 
reason is the great mystery of the Southwest. 

So cunningly hidden are these sky parlors that we 
drove by them without seeing them, and had to Inquire 
their whereabouts at the local postoffice. At Monte 
Cristo they show you the very window from which the 
Count did not leap; at Salem any citizen will proudly 
stop work to point out the hill where the witches were 
not burned, but the postmistress In a Georgette waist knew 
of the cliff-dwellings only as a fad of crazy tourists, 
although she could have walked to them in the time she 
took to remove her chewing gum before answering us. 
Out West they have not learned the art of making their 
ancestors earn an honest penny. 

We lunched at the Tonto ruins, and that lunch marks 



92 WESTWARD HOBOES 

the beginning of Toby's mania for hoarding bits of 
broken pottery, charred sticks and other relics of the 
past. She learned to distinguish between the red and 
black of the middle ages, the black and white of an 
earlier era, and the plain thumb-nail of remotest an- 
tiquity. She never could resist adding just one more 
bit of painted clay or obsidian to her knobby collection, 
and the blue bandana in which she tied them grew 
steadily larger, until it overflowed into the pockets of 
the car, and the food box, and after awhile she clinked 
as she walked, and said "Ouch" when she sat down 
absent-mindedly. 

Leaving the ruins and following the shelf high above 
the blue lake, we came quite unexpectedly on the dam, 
not five miles further. It was a surprise to reach our 
first night's stop with half the dread Trail behind us, 
and no thrilling escapes from destruction. We learned 
at the Inn that the worst sixteen miles lay ahead on the 
road to Fish Creek. Indeed, the Apache Trail, al- 
though narrow, full of turns and fairly precipitous in 
places, proved a far simpler matter than the unadver- 
tlsed "highway" out of Winkleman, while the scenery 
itself was hardly lovelier. 

Rounding the shoulder of a massive cliff, we swung 
sharply down hill to a narrow bridge of masonry, the 
arm holding back the great artificial body of water. In 
front was the dam, one of the largest in the world, and 
in difficulty of construction, one of the most interesting to 
engineers. Yet the flood twice Niagara's height pouring 
over it, is dwarfed to a mere trickle by the majesty of 
the cliffs above. To get its full impressiveness you must 
descend to the bottom of the masonry and look up at 



TWENTY PER CENT GRADES 93 

the volume pouring over the curved wall, which has 
made a quarter of a million acres of desert the most 
fruitful section of this continent. You observe a man 
walking along the steps which line the concave wall of 
the dam in close formation, and notice that his shoulder 
is on a level with the step above. Gradually, isolated 
from its dwarfing surroundings, the handiwork, of Man 
impresses you. There has been talk of placing near the 
dam a memorial to Roosevelt, but no fitting memorial 
could be placed there which would not seem of pigmy 
significance. The best and most appropriate memorial 
to the man of deeds is the dam Itself, and the fertile and 
prosperous Salt River Valley below it. 

At the Inn built on the borders of the lake we asked 
for rooms. The innkeeper, a plump and rubicund Irish- 
man, seemed flustered. His eyes swam, and he looked 
through us and beyond us with a fixed glare. His breath 
came short and labored — very fragrant. 

"Don't hurry me, lady," he replied pettishly to Miss 
Susan, "can't you see the crowds waiting for rooms? 
They ain't trying to get in ahead of their turn. They're 
behaving themselves. They aint trying to nag the life 
out of me asking for this and that. They aint pushin' 
and shovin'. Now, lady," fixing a stern eye upon her, 
and speaking like a man whose patience would outlast 
any strain, "I'm at my wit's end with all these people. 
Can't you be reasonable and wait till I git 'round to 
you?" 

As we were the only people in sight, we were forced 
to conclude he was seeing us in generous quantities. 
Possibly, too, we were not standing still, but were whirl- 
ing around in an irritating way. So we waited patiently 



94 WESTWARD HOBOES 

for an hour or so, while John made frequent trips to the 
back of the house. As the afternoon shortened, and 
John's temper with it, the crowd steadily increased. 

"Are our rooms ready yet?" I finally asked. His eye 
wandered past me and lighted upon Miss Susan. He 
fixed upon her, as a person who had given him much 
trouble a long time ago. 

"What! You here again?" He had a fine exclama- 
tory style. "Lady, you're giving me more trouble than 
all the rest of 'em put together. Here, Ed," he called a 
clerk, with great magnanimity, "take 'em. Give 'em a 
room. Give 'em the hotel. Give 'em anything they 
want. Only get 'em out of my way." 

They led us to our tents, where the beds were still 
unmade. The clerk left, promising to get John to send 
a chambermaid. We felt less hopeful than he, for as we 
were banished from his presence we observed him feel- 
ing his way, a cautious mile or so at a time, to the far 
reaches of the kitchen. We made one or two' trips to 
the hotel to induce somebody to make up our beds, keep- 
ing Miss Susan well in the background, for the sight of 
her seemed more than John could bear. But he pounced 
on her. 

"Have you any idea of the troubles of a hotel keeper?" 
His forbearance by now had become sublime. "y^«y 
idea? No, lady, I can see you haven't. If you had 
you'd be a little patient." 

Our beds were made, but an hour later we were still 
without towels and water, while one tent had no lights. 
The rest of us were thoroughly cowed by this time, but 
opposition had stiffened little Miss Susan to the point 
where she would risk being hurled over the dam before 



TWENTY PER CENT GRADES 95 

she would be brow-beaten. We timidly followed, giving 
her our physical if not our moral support, while she 
stated our case, which she did quite simply. 

"We've been here some hours, and we still have no 
towels or electric lights." 

"jB^ reasonable. I ask you, lady, one thing. If pos- 
sible." Heavy sarcasm. "5^ reasonable. I've got my 
troubles, same as you have. All the world has its 
troubles. Now why can't you stand yours with a little 
patience?" 

"I'm sorry for your troubles," said Miss Susan, sym- 
pathetically. "But we are paying for towels and electric 
lights. Why shouldn't you give them to us?" 

At this John became violent. 

"Lady! Go!" He pointed dramatically to the dam, 
and the road out into the wilderness beyond. "Go! I 
don't want you ! And never come back again. Lady, if 
everyone was like you, I'd go crazy. You've been ask- 
ing for something ever since you struck the place. Why, 
since you've come here, the help has all come to me 
and give notice. Now, get out !" 

For fear he might carry out the eviction on the spot, 
and send us on sixteen miles of precipitous darkness, 
we again retreated. After supper, facing the terrify- 
ing prospect of feeling her way to bed, lightless, and 
with no lock on the door to keep out inebriated landlords 
or mountain lions, Miss Susan resolved on action. She 
tiptoed to the dining room, and was in the act of unscrev/- 
ing a bulb from its socket when John appeared from the 
vicinity of the kitchen. At sight of his arch enemy thus 
outraging his hospitality, anger and grief swelled within 
him. Probably the only thing that kept Miss Susan, 



96 WESTWARD HOBOES 

dauntless but scared, from being completely annihilated 
was that he could not decide which one of her to begin 
on first. 

"Lady!" he exclaimed, sorrowfully, as if he could not 
believe his eyes, — and possibly he could not — "Lady! 
Off my own dining-room table !" 

He reached wobbly but sublime heights of forbearance, 
his voice filled with reproachful irony. 

"Lady, I got one thing to ask you. Only one. If you 
got to take my electric lights, — If you've sunk as low as 
that, lady, — all I ask Is, don't take 'em off my dining- 
room table. I've seen all sorts of people here In my 
day, — all sorts, but none of them would steal the lights 
off my dining-room table." 

"I have never been so insulted In all my life," ex- 
claimed Miss Susan. 

"Lady," said John, swaying as by an Invisible breeze, 
"I am trying to be as nice as I know how." 

A few scared employes later sought our tents, to apolo- 
gize for John. 

"John Is never like this," said one succinctly, "except 
when he's this way." 

"I thought Arizona was a prohibition state," I said, 
remembering the sheriff of Pima County, "where does 
he get it?" 

Their eyes wandered to the horizon, and remained 
fixed there. 

"Vanilla extract," said one. 

The scientifically minded Toby made an excursion to 
the Inn, and came back with a satisfied sniff. 

"It wasn't vanilla," she reported positively. 

Upon the hotel porch, we could see John's white 



TWENTY PER CENT GRADES 97 

jacketed fat figure mincing up and down before a group 

of late-comers holding an imaginary skirt in one hand. 

First he was Miss Susan, red-handed and infamous;. then 

he became himself, majestic yet forbearing. 

"Took them right off my dining-room table," we heard 
him say. 



CHAPTER X 

THE APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 

FEARING the wrath of John, we made a guilty start 
in the freshness of the next morning. But when we 
paid our bill and left, John was still heavily under the 
influence of vanilla, and to Miss Susan's relief, we did 
not encounter him. Even in bright daylight with no 
traffic we were an hour and a half driving the sixteen 
miles to Fish Creek. Salt River Valley became a narrow 
chasm, dark and gloomy but for the glint of emerald 
cottonwoods edging the stream at the bottom. A chaotic 
heap of brilliant-hued peaks filled the valley. 

The road was all that had been claimed for it. Had 
we not been inoculated with horizontal-fever serum on 
the still more precarious Winkleman trail, we might have 
fallen over the precipice in sheer giddiness. The natural 
hazards of a road which skipped from top to bottom of a 
series of thousand-foot rocks were increased by tipping 
outward up-hill and around corners, so that frequently we 
lurched over steep chasms at a far from reassuring angle, 
while our long wheel-base increased complications. Boul- 
ders loosened from the crumbling cliffs above, cluttered 
the road at the most dangerous turns. A glance ahead at 
a dizzy drop of several thousand feet, then beyond to a 
corresponding climb, and still further to dips and swoops 
exceeding the most breath-taking devices of Coney Island, 
would make me weak-kneed. But taking the road in a 

98 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 99 

near-sighted way, after one quick glance over switch- 
backs to make sure we should meet no traffic, and meet- 
ing each problem in driving as it came abreast the steer- 
ing wheel, I found the Apache Trail as safe as a church. 

We breakfasted under the highest peak of all, at the 
little Fish Creek inn. Here the scenery resembled the 
landscapes of impressive grandeur our grandmothers re- 
ceived for wedding presents, with crags and waterfalls, 
jungles, mountains and valleys gloomily heaped together 
in a three foot canvas. Our breakfast was a simple af- 
fair of stewed fruit, oatmeal, fried ham, fried eggs, 
bacon, hot biscuits, coffee and griddle cakes. Thus se- 
curely ballasted, our chance of being toppled off a cliff's 
edge was materially lessened. Now came the climax of 
the drive, — the climb to Lookout Point. 

Two thousand vertical feet of rock would seem a suf- 
ficient barrier to turn humanity back into the fastnesses 
whence it came. But moccasined feet had won to the 
summit, and motor cars with the power of many cayuses 
now roar over the same trail, a tortuous mile upward 
to Lookout Point. Whether this spot was named for 
its scenic beauty or for a warning, matters not: the name 
fits. We looked our fill. I cannot describe what we saw. 
Go and see it for yourself, even at the risk of breaking a 
neck. The safety of one's neck is always inversely as 
the beauty of the view. 

Miles on jagged miles of mountain tops lay below us. 
It was not long before we became aware of the extreme 
unimportance of ourselves and our tiny affairs. The 
mountains shouted to each other, "GOD IS!" 

With a suggestion of Bunyan, we reached Superstition 
Mountain next, and left it behind. Then the scenery, 



lOO WESTWARD HOBOES 

having had its last triumphant fling of grandeur, settled 
down to levels of gray and brown. The world which a 
moment since had stood on its head for joy tumbled flat, 
and became content with mediocrity. 

Five miles more, and the reason for Roosevelt Dam 
lay before our eyes. Five miles of blistering country, so 
dry, as a guide said, that "when you spit you can't see 
where it lands" ; a country burnt to a crisp by withering 
sunshine so intense that shadows, sharp-edged as razor 
blades, look vermilion purple. Only horned reptiles, 
poisonous and thorny-backed, can exist here, and plants as 
ungracious, compelled to hoard their modicum of moisture 
in iron-clad, spiny armament. And then, a line of de- 
marcation the width of a street, and the Water-God has 
turned this colorless ache of heat to emerald green. 
Thwarted cactus gives way to long rows of poplars and 
leopard-spotted eucalyptus bordering blue canals. We 
saw a corner of Southern France where the hills of 
Provenge edge the fertile plains of Avignon. We were 
in the famous Salt River Valley, the boast of parched 
Arizona. 

We followed these shady canals into Phoenix, bump- 
ing over dismally paved roads, and making wide detours 
where some irrigator greedy for water had flooded 
the street. After leaving our friends at the station, we 
returned, sand blowing in our faces, to the San Marcos 
Hotel at Chandler. Neither town nor hotel has geo- 
graphic or commercial reasons for existing, but both are 
examples of one man's patient persistence in a fight with 
stubborn Nature. Chandler is typical of the whole Val- 
ley. Sand-besieged from the north, it sets a flame of 
verdure to meet the devastating onslaught of the desert, 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY loi 

blossoming defiantly till the air is saturated with per- 
fume. A contrast to the uncompromising shoe-box fronts 
of most Western hotels, the San Marcos displayed low 
plaster arcades hung with swinging plants inviting all 
the song birds of the valley, cool corridors and care- 
fully planned interiors, and gardens framed by distant 
lilac mountains. Across from the hotel little shops re- 
peated its design of reposeful Mission. Only on the out- 
skirts of this little town did we meet with the crude un- 
sophistication of the Rockies. Yet before a week passed 
all this artificial fertility and prettiness palled. It was 
not Arizona. Beyond the orange and olive groves of the 
Valley, beyond the blooming roses and the song of the 
nightingale, and all the daintiness of eastern standards 
inlaid upon the west we felt the threat of the arid waste 
circling this little island of fruitfulness. The dam, bene- 
ficent as it is, harnesses but does not destroy the desert. 

We found ourselves making excursions back to the un- 
trammeled wastes of sand beyond. Once we made a 
day's excursion to Casa Grande, forty miles away, over 
the Maricopa reservation. 

No spot could look more untouched by human life 
than this wind-ribbed and desolate palimpsest of sand on 
which layer on layer of history has been scratched. The 
old Santa Fe Trail, from armored Spaniard to Wells- 
Fargo days, ran directly over a corner of ruins since 
excavated. Before 1700 Father Kino came upon this 
remote house of the Morning Glow, as the Indians called 
it, and held mass in its empty rooms for the tribes of the 
region. Coronado the ubiquitous may have seen it since 
he speaks of a Great House built by Indians. Even then, 
the place lay in ruins, and for how much further back? 



102 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Nobody knows, and guesses are a millennium apart. It 
is America's oldest ruin. 

We drove home across the desert through a world 
transfigured. The afternoon sun in that pure air scat- 
tered prismatic stains over gray mesquite and sage, and 
colored the translucent hills in gay pinks and blues. Su- 
perstition Mountain loomed clear and cold on our left. 
But what caught and held our eyes in this pastel land was 
a riot, a debauch of clear orange-gold. Born overnight 
of a quick shower and a spring sun, a million deep- 
centered California poppies spread a fabulous mosaic 
over the dull earth, fairy gold In a fairy world, alive, 
ablaze. A sunset was thrown in, and a crescent moon in a 
Pompadour sky helped us thread our way home through 
arroyos and over blind trails. 

Still in search of a "dood ranch," we trailed all over 
the Salt River Valley. 

Some of the ranches where we sought board and lodg- 
ing were surrounded by orange groves. The hosts made 
a point of the privilege allowed guests to pick and eat all 
the oranges they liked, but at the prices charged we could 
have procured the same privilege in any hotel In New 
York. Arizona prices do not, like the ostrich, hide their 
heads in the sand. The completion of the dam made 
Salt River Valley realize that the climate she had always 
possessed, crowned with fruit and flowers, made her Cali- 
fornia's rival. She began to cultivate oranges, pecans and 
a professional enthusiasm for herself. One Native Son 
of Phoenix of whom I was buying post-cards almost sold 
me a triangular corner of his ranch, at $300 an acre. If 
It had been Irrigated, he said he would have had to charge 
more. The longer he talked the more eager I was to se- 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 103 

cure this Paradise whose native milk and honey would 
keep me in affluence and spare tires the rest of my days. 
Toby, however, who had been strolling about during the 
exhortation and had not been splashed by his golden 
shower of words, advised postponing purchase till we 
saw the land. We drove out, and looked at it. One thing 
he had claimed was true : — it was triangular. It was 
frankly desert, but not even pretty desert. Except for a 
deserted pigsty in the immediate foreground, there was 
no view. We drove back to Phoenix. 

Now Phoenix has paved streets and electric lights and 
a Chamber of Commerce, a State House and a Gov- 
ernor. But somehow, Phoenix had no charm for us. 
Phoenix may be Arizona, but it is Arizona denatured. 
All Salt River Valley seemed denatured. It had taken 
its boom seriously, and the arch crime of self-conscious- 
ness possessed it. For the first time since the Aztecs one 
can find Arizonans trying to do what other people do, 
rather than what they dam-please. And it set, oh, so 
heavily on Phoenix and the Phoenicians and on the East- 
erners and Callfornians who had come there to be as 
western as they dared. Finally we heard of a little 
ranch away up in the country north of the dam, where 
we need not dress for dinner, and there we hied us. 

As we were leaving, we did find one person in the 
Valley who was entirely free from the vice of self-con- 
sciousness. While I bought gasoline at forty-five cents 
a gallon in Mesa to save having to pay seventy-five in 
Payson, she spied me and came up eagerly to pass the 
time of day. 

"Awful hot," she said cordially, fixing calm brown 
eyes on me. 



104 WESTWARD HOBOES 

"Indeed it is," I said. 

A worried expression passed over her sweetly creased 
old face. 

"Terrible unseasonable. Hard to know what to do 
about your winter flannels." 

"I changed mine today," I replied. 

Her brown eyes again became serene pools. 

"Guess I will, too," she answered. 

In Boston it would have taken two generations to 
have reached the subject of winter-flannels. We ex- 
changed no further courtesies, except smiles, and she 
left looking cooler already. 

At a little ranch near Pine, Arizona, northwest of 
Roosevelt Dam, we hoped to find lodging. Hoped, be- 
cause a letter from Chandler took a week or more to 
penetrate to its remoteness, and ours had not long pre- 
ceded us. Some discussion there had been as to whether 
the snow would permit us to get through, but we decided 
to chance it, for spring was daily working In our favor. 

We had not gone far from town when the "old lady" 
without any preliminary groans, stopped short. Cars 
have a way of doing that, but ours till now had stopped 
only for external reasons, such as a tire, or a too per- 
suasive mud-hole. Now she stopped as though she needed 
a rest and intended, willy-nilly, to take one. On such 
occasions I always open the hood and peer inside, not 
because it enlightens me or starts the car, but because 
Toby has not yet learned to regard it as a graceful ges- 
ture, merely. 

"What is it?" she asked, with the respect I liked to 
have her employ. 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 105 

"Either the carburetor or the batteries," I answered 
expertly. 

A man drove by. Our silent motor, and ourselves in 
the despairing, bewildered attitude common to all in like 
situation, were the only signal needed, for this was Ari- 
zona. A moment before he had seemed in a tearing 
hurry, but as he pulled up and offered help, he seemed to 
have all the time in the calendar. He got down in the 
dust, wrestled with the tools we Intelligently handed him 
at proper intervals, explored the batteries, and struggled 
to his feet. 

"Batteries all right. Ignition." 

Four miles from town, with a dead motor! But be- 
fore we had time to exchange doleful glances, he asked 
briskly, 

"Got a rope?" 

We protested at his inconveniencing himself, for we 
had a fixed scruple that having taken to the road regard- 
less of consequences, we should be willing to take our 
own medicine and abide by what arrived. But we might 
have saved our breath. The Samaritans who passed by 
on our side always answered comfortably as did this 
latest benefactor. 

"What'm/here for?" 

Thus, with at least an hour's loss. Number 10, or 11, 
or 12 of the Nicest Men We Ever Met towed us to 
the nearest ranch, and there telephoned for help. How 
welcome were the rattletrap ex-racer, and blue-overalled 
mechanic with a smudge on his left cheek who came to 
a dashing stop opposite our machine, — the same mechanic 
we had despised yesterday for forgetting to fill our grease- 



io6 WESTWARD HOBOES 

cups, — I was tempted to paraphrase Goldsmith, or some- 
body, 

"Garageman, in thine hours of ease 

Uncertain, coy, and hard to please. 
But seen too oft, familiar with thy face 

We first endure, then pity, then embrace !" 

Smudge and all, we nearly embraced him when he took 
apart and put together the whole ignition system, and 
came out even. Presently, at the heart of that tightly 
closed metal box, on a tiny point hardly larger than a 
needle he discovered a few grains of sand, memento of our 
last sandstorm. Like the blood clot which strikes down 
robust men, it had stopped a ton of mechanism from func- 
tioning. Philosophizing thus, we idly watched the me- 
chanic put together those intricate parts, little realizing 
how useful the experience would prove later. 

It was part of the odd luck which from beginning to 
end followed us that our breakdown happened before we 
had re-entered the isolated Apache Trail, with its break- 
neck grades. Still, our adventure delayed us, until on 
entering the pass with its looming mountains and wild 
gorges shutting us away from the world, darkness had 
closed in around us, — the pitch-black of a wilderness 
night. Ahead lay the famed Fish Creek road, fairly ter- 
rifying a week ago when we climbed it in broad day- 
light. Now, in the dark, we were to descend this dizzy 
corkscrew which dropped a thousand feet in a mile and 
a quarter. One lamp gave only a feeble light, but the 
other threw a magnificent steady glare which pierced the 
loneliness of that jumble of crags and forests far below 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 107 

us. Would our brakes hold, and would our nerves obey 
us? Though I felt cool, I admit to gripping the steering- 
wheel harder than good driving required. From Toby's 
direction came a funny noise. 

"I just remembered Mother's last words," she ex- 
plained. 

We both laughed, though feebly, at the perennial joke. 

Night has the effect of seeming to double distances. 
At the pinnacle of this crag we paused a second. Be- 
low, we looked down vast depths upon the points of 
lesser pinnacles, jumbled in the valley. There was no 
bottom to the Pit directly under our headlights. Used to 
scenery with a bottom to it, however remote, we had 
rather a prejudice in favor of It. Beyond the radius of 
our lights we could pierce the blackness only in vague 
outlines. Then we dropped down, taking each switch- 
back with caution. The nose of the car swung periodi- 
cally out over the edge, daring our brakes to go the inch 
more which meant a mile — downward. One loose rock, 
of which there were so many, might send us spinning, 
crashing among the treetops below. But why harrow 
the reader unnecessarily? It must be evident we reached 
the bottom In safety. Yet halfway down I was not so 
sure of the outcome, for a spark of light and a little 
click, regular and ominous, came from the engine, just 
when the grade pitched the car head-down. I took the 
turns with my heart In my mouth. When we reached 
fairly level ground again we investigated. It was only 
a loose wire, connecting with the cylinders, but a little 
longer descend and we might have had a cross circuit, 
— and trouble. 

It was good to have the valley come up to us. It was 



io8 WESTWARD HOBOES 

very good to see little friendly lights twinkling in the 
vast circle of the hills. The lights meant the Inn, and 
our day's journey ended. The host welcomed us, rather 
astonished that two Easterners should have risked that 
hill at night. Had there been any other way we should 
have taken it, but no grassy meadows offered where we 
could run the car in safety; only empty chasms or per- 
pendicular cliffs. Once on the road we had to go on. 
Then, too, we preferred the hot and appetizing food of 
the Inn to our own amateur camp cooking. Food is a 
powerful magnet. 

Toward sunset next day we had passed beyond the 
lake of cobalt which science had set in the golden circlet 
of the desert. We had left the haunts of motors. As we 
rose from one hilly crest to the next higher, we met only 
an occasional prospector, afoot, or an emigrant from 
Utah with an old-time prairie schooner and a flock of 
burros. We were on that further branch of the T-shaped 
trail named Apache, and later we turned due north, and 
left it for mountain ranges of sweeping loveliness. I 
cannot, at the risk of boring, write of mountains without 
enthusiasm. These were on a colossal scale, as befits 
the Rockies, but their grandeur did not repel. They were 
homey mountains. As we traveled upward over the 
same kind of shelf-road with which the Winkleman trail 
had made us so quickly familiar, we could look down 
upon range after range, their blues and ochres melting 
together as far as eye could reach. 

In a cup of these hills, yet so high it was itself on 
a mountain, the road forked sharply, each branch lead- 
ing straight up a mountain, and each seeming well-nigh 
unconguerable. Below lay a little mining settlement of 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 109 

half a dozen cabins. At the juncture a sign-board bore 
the name of the town toward which we were traveling. 
It was an excellent sign-board, plainly marked. Its only 
draw-back was that it pointed midway between the two 
roads, quite impartially. Toby was for taking the right 
fork, I for the left. We argued hotly but finally Toby 
won, and we took the right-hand road. Soon the mining 
camp dropped several hundred feet below, and then be- 
came a dot. Ahead, the road circled in a twenty-mile 
horse-shoe on the inside of a mountain range, seeming 
to lead miles into the wilderness. I announced that Toby 
was mistaken. 

"The Mormon said to take the right turn," said Toby, 
standing to her guns. 

"And we've taken half a dozen right turns since then," 
I answered. Now the problem facing us was: To turn 
a heavy car with a 122 inch wheel-base around on a steep 
twelve-foot road with a mountain slope on one side and 
on the other, sheer precipice. Often in nightmares of 
late I had found myself compelled to drive down Bright 
Angel Trail at the Grand Canyon, turn at Jacob's Lad- 
der, and ascend, — and the present reality was hardly less 
terrifying. It turned out later that Toby was right, as 
she always was when she should have been wrong, — and 
we could have been spared our acrobatics. But we should 
have missed Mr. Kelly. 

We made the turn. I never want to try it again. A 
few inches forward, till a yawning gulf lay under our 
front wheels ; then back till we hit a steep bank, then for- 
ward, down grade to the edge; brakes, reverse, and the 
fear of a plunge forward between release of brakes and 
the catch of the reverse gear. We made half a dozen 



no WESTWARD HOBOES 

maneuvers before we again faced the misleading sign- 
post. We passed the mining camp, drove up the left 
fork, and bumped against a mountain which refused to be 
climbed. 

"You see I was right," said Toby smugly. 

Before she had finished, a man with a refulgent smile 
came running up, thrust into our hands a visiting card 
which he took from his wallet, and shaking our hands 
enthusiastically said, "Glad to see ye, gurrls. Kelly's 
my name. What's yourn? I'm boss of the mine here. 
Come on out, and stay to supper. Stay all night. Stay 
a week, — the b'ys will be tickled t' death. You can have 
my room, — I'll bunk wid the foreman. I'm f'rm Provi- 
dence, Rhode Island. Been in the Legislat'ur twenty 
years. Been a horse jockey, an' an inventor, an' foreman 
of a factory. Makin' my everlastin' fortune in this mine 
just now, and no stock to sell. Where 'ye from?" 

"Boston, now! Well, say, ye're a long ways fr'm 
home. Ye'll have to stay, neighbors like that. We got 
a big fat cook, two hundred and fifty she weighs, and a 
crackerjack with the eats, and she says tell ye she'll never 
speak to you agin if ye don't stay to supper." 

I looked wistfully at Toby. We had been warned 
we might not get through to Pine, because of snow drifts 
in the passes, and it was only an hour to dark, over twist- 
ing and unknown hill roads, but our recent trapeze work 
had left us with an all-gone feeling at the belt. If we did 
not eat now we might go hungry till morning. We de- 
cided not to renounce the friendship of the two hundred 
and fifty pound crackerjack. 

Kelly was one of Nature's enthusiasts, but he had un- 
derstated concerning his cook, both in weight and pro- 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY in 

ficiency. All of her three hundred odd pounds billowing 
and undulating in the bounds of a starched white apron 
waddled a testimonial to her skill. When Kelly deli- 
cately left us under her chaperonage she overflowed with 
joy. 

"Girls, you don't know what a treat it is to see women- 
folks. I been here all winter, the only woman in camp, 
and I could die with homesickness." 

We said something appreciative of the beauty of the 
scenery. She sniffed. 

"This? Say, girls, you ought to see God's country!" 

"California?" we said intelligently. 

"You bet!" answered the Native Daughter. "I s'pose 
you're headed that way?" 

"No, — " weakly, — "we thought we'd see Arizona 
first." 

"Well, girls, it's lucky you met me. Now I can lay 
out a trip for you through California that will knock 
Arizona silly. There's the Yosemite, — and the Big 
Trees, — and the climate, — grandest scenery in the world, 
— and San Francisco. After you reach Needles, you get 
good roads all the way, — nothing like these. My ! To 
think you'd 'a wasted your time in Arizona if I hadn't 
met you." 

"Yes, Indeed. We can't be grateful enough." 

The truth, with a little ingenuity, always serves. At 
this point we were luckily called to supper, cooked early 
for our convenience. We sat between Mr. Kelly, who 
leaped lightly from ships to sealing wax, from cabbages 
to kings In a jovial torrent of brogue, and the engineer 
of the mine. The latter was an Englishman well past 
middle age, with a slight cockney accent, apparently self- 



112 WESTWARD HOBOES 

educated but with the thoroughness only his type achieves. 
When he spoke in a hesitating, deprecating way, vastly 
unlike Mr. Kelly's self-assured flood, he exhibited a vast 
range of information, correct, unlike Mr. Kelly's again, 
to the last detail. His vague brown eyes, the iris blue- 
rimmed, cleared and shone with faith when in a matter- 
of-course way he suddenly spoke of the "spirit world," 
which it seems was very near to him. Fifty, painfully 
ugly, shabby middle-class, learned, and on telepathic 
terms with ghosts, he piqued curiosity, as a man who 
seemed to have much behind and little before him. 

Kelly, on the other hand, was a man of futures, the 
longer and riskier the better. He was waiting a neces- 
sary month or two for the mine to yield him and its 
owners an immense fortune, — "and no stock to sell." 
Arizona was "the greatest country in the world," and this 
pocket of the hills the finest spot in Arizona. The "b'ys" 
who were expected to be entranced at our advent were 
the finest in the United States. 

"All good b'ys," he proclaimed while, eyes downcast, 
they shoveled huge knifefuls of beans to conceal their 
embarrassment, "good b'ys, and refined, — not what you 
usually get in mining camps. You won't hear them speak 
a wor'rd before you not fit for ladies." 

He was right, there, for they opened not their mouths, 
except to fill them, while the boldest mumbled a "pass 
the butter !" Yet, without vanity, I think the company 
of "ladies" did give them a kind of agonized pleasure. 
When we left they watched us out of sight. 

"An' d'ye know what stopped the war?" continued 
Kelly, taking a jump we could not quite follow. "Ye 
thought Wilson did it, didn't ye? He did not. It was 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 113 

copper. Copper did It. And Kelly. I saw how things 
was goin' — I wint to the Secret'ry of the Treasury, an' I 
says to him, 'McAdoo,' I says, 'Ye know as well as meself 
that this war has to stop. An' why? Copper,' I 
says, " 

The inside story of the armistice we never did learn, 
for an interruption came in the shape or shapelessness of 
the Native Daughter bearing a four layer cake, which we 
hardly finished before the gathering dark warned us to 
leave. We could barely withstand the pressure to stay 
overnight, to stay a week, or a month, or better, — "Come 
and settle. There's land enough; ye can pick y'r spot, 
and I'll have the b'ys put up a bungalow f'r ye. They'll 
be tickled to death to do it." As a sop to propriety he 
added, "Me old woman's coming out next week." 

"It's good to see women," said the little engineer as 
he quietly shook hands. His vague eyes looked more 
haunted than ever. "It — it gets lonesome here." 

"Give my love to California," screamed the cook, tak' 
ing our destination for granted. 

As we gave one last look at those hospitable miners, 
friendly as dogs who have been locked In an empty house, 
and a last look over the wonderful landscape rolling be- 
low us for miles, we too felt a pang at leaving. 

"We'll stop In on our way back," we promised. 

Toward dark, we began to encounter snow drifts. 
The first were easily passed, but as we climbed higher 
and the night thickened we found each drift a little harder 
to conquer, though the mild air was hardly tempered 
with frost. 

Toby, a beginner at Galveston, could already manage 
almost any ordinary road, but not until later did she 



114 WESTWARD HOBOES 

become experienced enough for sky-climbing. Conse- 
quently I took the canyons, and for two days there had 
been little else. By ten, when one of the neat state sign- 
posts told us we were but five miles from the Goodfellow 
Ranch, our destination, I felt nearly exhausted, ner- 
vously and physically. But the home stretch proved worst 
of all. It led across a prairie to a descent encourag- 
ingly marked "Private road. Dangerous. Take at your 
own risk." 

Well, to reach our bed that night we had to take it. In 
a moment we were nose-diving down another canyon, 
which in daylight was only moderately terrifying, but at 
night seemed bottomless. It was Fish Creek over again, 
with two irritating additions, — one, a slimy, skiddy 
adobe road full of holes and strewn with boulders; and 
two, a ridiculous baby jack-rabbit, who, frightened by 
our headlights, leaped just ahead of us in the ruts. He 
would neither hurry nor remove himself. At times his 
life seemed directly pitted against ours, yet we could not 
bring ourselves to run over his soft little body. It was 
the last straw. When the sickening distance down the 
canyon lessened, and we saw the cheery lights of the 
ranch through the fir trees, I nearly cried with relief. 

"Will you come in, — you must be tired," said a pretty 
Scotch voice. A little woman held a lantern. "Two 
ladies! We saw your lights, but never dreamed you'd 
be coming down in the dark. There's many that think 
the road none too safe in the day." 

Her remark was balm to my chagrin at having let a 
jack-rabbit unnerve me. All our lives, it seemed, had 
been spent driving down the edge of hair-raising preci- 
pices in the dark; to be free of them at last, to enter a 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 115 

warm, lighted, snug cottage, where a friendly Papago 
servant led us to the cleanest, most luxurious of beds, — 
this was heaven. 

Natural Bridge can be reached two ways from the 
world, — south from Flagstaff ninety miles, or by the 
Apache Trail from Globe or Tucson. The northern road 
lay under twenty feet of snow, and this while a huge apri- 
cot tree, — the oldest In the state, — bloomed pink, and 
the alfalfa floor of the little canyon was varnished with 
emerald. Next morning we looked on this budding and 
blossoming world, hedged in with red cliffs and lapis 
lazuli hills. A few neat cottages and farm buildings 
nestled together, — but where was the bridge, large enough 
we had been told, to hide three or four of the Virginian 
variety under Its arch? 

They laughed at our queston. It is the standing joke 
at the Goodfellow ranch. They pointed to the five acre 
field of level alfalfa, edged with a prosperous vineyard. 
"You are on the bridge." 

Bewildered, we walked for five minutes to the edge of 
the little level ranch surrounded by high pinon-covered 
walls on all sides. Still no bridge. At our feet they 
showed us a small hole In the ground, a foot deep. Look- 
ing through It we saw a steep chasm with a tangle of cac- 
tus and trees, and at the very bottom a clear, swift 
stream. 

Unknown years ago some strange explosion had taken 
place through this tiny vent, creating the powerful arch 
beneath, which at this point seemed perilously thin, yet 
supported houses, cattle and men. At a crisis the 
accidents of Nature, like those of men, crystallize, and 
thereafter become unalterable. This tiny peep-hole. 



ii6 WESTWARD HOBOES 

whim of a casual meeting of gases, would survive a thou- 
sand of our descendants. This was only one of a hun- 
dred spectacles Arizona was staging at the time. Think 
what a fuss the San Franciscans made of their little erup- 
tion in 1906, — and yet Arizona managed an exposition of 
fireworks back in the dark ages compared to which San 
Francisco's was like a wet firecracker. But Arizona 
showed poor business judgment in letting all her Grand 
Canyons, natural bridges and volcanoes erupt before 
the invention of jitneys, railroads, motion pictures 
and press agents. Naturally her geologic display at- 
tracted no attention, and today you can come upon freaks 
of nature casually anywhere in the state, of which nobody 
ever heard. 

Even Natural Bridge, the widest of its kind in the 
world, is unknown to most Arizonans; many have only 
vaguely heard of it or confuse it with the Rainbow Bridge 
in Utah. Yet it is the strangest jumble of geologic 
freaks in any equal area, outside of Yellowstone. 

Standing under the arch, so broad and irregularly 
shaped that at no point can it be photographed to show 
adequately that it is a bridge, you are really on the ground 
floor of a four-story apartment of Nature's building. 
The first floor is laid with a tumbling brown stream, 
flecked with white, and tiled with immense porphyry 
colored boulders of fantastic shapes. Exotic shrubs of 
tangly cactus, huge spotted eucalyptus, and firs, and myr- 
iads of dainty flowers dress the vestibule. Pools and 
stone tubs sculptured by Father Time invite, — oh, how 
they invite to bathe I The floor is speckled and flecked 
with sunlight which filters under the arch. Great rocks 
seem to float on the stream, mysteriously lighted, like 




GREAT ROCKS SEEM TO FLOAT ON THE STREAM, MYSTERIOUSLY LIGHTED, 
LIKE BOCKLIN'S ISLE OF THE DEAD. 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 117 

Bocklin's Island of the Dead. For half a mile you push 
through stubborn mesquite, wade and leap from rock to 
stream, finding a picture at every turn. 

Then climbing sixty or more perpendicular feet on an 
amateur ladder, whose stoutness is its only reassuring 
feature, built by the discoverer of the Bridge, Scotch old 
Dave Goodfellow, you reach the second floor, devoted to 
one room apartments hollowed by drippings of age-old 
streams, and slippery with crusted lime. The cliff is 
honeycombed with caves in which stalactite and stalag- 
mite meet, resembling twisted cedar trunks. Wolves and 
coyotes have made their homes here, and even somnolent 
grizzlies; in the smaller niches on warm spring days one 
has to take care that one's fingers do not grasp a twining 
mass of sluggish rattlesnake. In one of these caves the 
human rattlesnake, Geronimo, hid for a month In the 
Apache revolt of the nineties, while the United States 
scouts scoured Arizona to find him, and a story and a 
half above, the canny Goodfellow hid in his little one- 
room cabin, each fearing discovery by the other. 

Above this floor Is a mezzanine with another nest of 
caverns. Three sets of ladders riveted to a vertical 
shelf of rock lead you to the most Interesting cave of 
them all, where the fairy tale comes true of the wizard 
who had to climb a mountain of glass. Toby knows no 
fear of aerial heights, so I had to pretend not to. A 
grandnephew of the elder Goodfellow led us where I 
hope never to return. We entered through a hole just 
wide enough to admit our bodies, and barely high enough 
to stand upright in. Then up a grade of 40 per cent over 
a limestone surface glassy from age-long accumulations of 
dripping chemicals, we wriggled flat on our backs, with 



ii8 WESTWARD HOBOES 

feet braced against the ceiling to prevent our slipping out 
of the cave. Only a bat could have felt completely non- 
chalant under such circumstances. Harry Goodfellow 
worked himself along swiftly and easily, with an ex- 
traordinary hitch, hands and feet braced against the 
ceiling of the cave. After him, less expertly, we came, 
using his ankles for ladder rungs, and clinging to them 
frantically. How I prayed, not altruistically, that his 
ankles were not weak ! My imagination took the wrong 
moment to visualize his grip failing, and his sudden 
descent out of the cave and over the cliff, with Toby and 
me each frantically clinging to an ankle. However we 
made the climb up safely, but going down was worse. 
I wonder why human nature never remembers, when it 
climbs to dizzy heights, that the go-down will be dizzier 
still. 

I daresay I should yet be mid-way down that glass- 
bottomed cave, with feet barnacled to Its ceiling, had I not 
realized how uncomfortable life would be spent in that 
position. Therefore I slid, — and jumped, hoping the 
force of my descent would not bounce me out of the 
narrow entrance into a clump of cactus sixty feet below. 
What happened to the others at that moment I did not 
care. 

In caves still higher up beneath the bridge we dis- 
covered bits of baskets and pottery fashioned by ubiqui- 
tous cave-dwellers a thousand years ago. Then turning 
a corner, we came upon a fairy grotto, a shallow rock- 
basin filled with shining water; walls covered with moss 
and glossy maiden hair fern, over which a sparkling cas- 
cade fell. All this, built out like a Juliet balcony high 
over the babbling brook. 




NATURAL BRIDGE, PINE, ARIZONA. 



APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 119 

From here it was only a short scramble back to the 
ranch-house, the barn, gardens and orchards on floor 
three, from which a steep canyon road leads to the upper 
world. Years ago when Dave Goodfellow, hermit and 
prospector, built his shack here the undergrowth was so 
wild that a calf who wandered into the brush and died 
within ten feet of the house was not found till a month 
after. Now the tangle has been smoothed and planted to 
alfalfa. Under the huge fruit trees he planted, meanders 
a brook edged with mint, violets and water-cress. Visitors 
drop down only occasionally, but they are always sure of 
good food, a clean bed, and a whole-hearted Scotch wel- 
come. When news finally seeped in to us that spring had 
melted the snow-packed mountain roads, leaving them dry 
enough to travel, we departed with regret. "Pa" Good- 
fellow built us a food box out of two empty gasoline tins, 
"Ma" Goodfellow gave us a loaf of fresh bread, a jar 
of apricot preserves, and a wet bag full of water-cress, 
which provided manna for two hot, dusty days. 

Spring had wrought marvels to our thrice traveled 
Apache Trail. The hills were gay with blue lupin, the 
color of shadows in that hot land. The valleys blazed 
with the yellow blossoms of the prickly holly bush, 
sweeter in odor than jasmine. Dozens of times we 
stopped to collect the myriad varieties of spring flowers, 
more prodigal than I have seen anywhere else in the 
world; poppies, red snap-dragons, Indian paint brush, 
the blue loco-weed which gives permanent lunacy to the 
cattle and horses which eat it; little delicate desert blooms 
like our bluets and grass flowers, shading from blue to 
white, and daisies of a dozen kinds, yellow, orange, yel- 



120 WESTWARD HOBOES 

low with brown centers, with yellow centers, and giant 
marguerites. 

At the mining camp we stopped for a how-d'y-do with 
the Kellys. "The old woman," who had arrived from 
Providence recently, was brought out to meet us. A 
short, asthmatic and completely suburban lady, the beau- 
ties of the lovely scene rolling away to the horizon left 
her blank. She still panted in short gasps from the 
terrors of the Apache Trail. 

"Awful!" she told us. "Awful! I was so scared I 
thought I'd die. Straight up and down. Straight up and 
down. My heart was in my mouth all the trip. I'm 
homesick. Look at this place, — no stores and no neigh- 
bors — not a bit like Providence." 

Her dampening presence seemed a little to have 
affected her husband's effervescence. However, he still 
had the finest mine in Arizona, and Arizona was the finest 
state in the Union. 

"She'll get used to it by and by," he said. "Horizon- 
tal fever, — that's what the old lady's got. Ought to 
heard her squeal on them turns." 

They pressed us to stay over night. 

"You ain't heard how I stopped the war," said Kelly. 

But we regretfully said we must push on. So, loaded 
with specimens of ore and good wishes, we sped away. 



CHAPTER XI 

FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 

IT was one of those days when everything goes wrong, 
and it fell on Friday the thirteenth. 

Three days earlier, on reaching Globe, we learned we 
could not take the direct road to Santa Fe without char- 
tering a steamer to ferry us across the untamed Gila. 
Most roads in Arizona are amphibious; to be ready for 
all emergencies, a motor traveling in that region of sur- 
prises should be equipped with skates, snow-shoes and 
web-feet. As our chosen road lay under some eight feet 
of river, we were obliged to make a slight detour of five 
hundred miles, or half the distance from Boston to 
Chicago. So we retraced the dizzy Winkleman trail, 
far less dizzy since we had become indifferent to tight- 
rope performances, passed through Tucson without at- 
tracting attention from the Sheriff of Pima County, and 
were rewarded for our digression by a sunset drive over 
the famous Tucson-Bisbee route, where a perfect road, 
built by convict labor, combined with perfect scenery to 
make our crossing of the Continental Divide for the 
dozenth time an event. 

There are about as many Continental Divides in the 
West as beds in which Washington slept in the East. I 
first crossed the Divide somewhere up in Montana, and 
thinking it the only one of its kind, 1 was properly 
thrilled. But later I met another in Wyoming, and in the 
Southwest they seemed to crop up everywhere. 

121 



122 WESTWARD HOBOES 

We were soon glad chance had sent us over the route 
we had discarded when we first entered Arizona. It was 
a mellow, gracious loveliness we passed, looking down 
from the top of the world on fields of silvery pampas, on 
stretches of velvet-brown grazing country, misted over 
with moon-white and sun-yellow poppies, and patches 
of wild heliotrope whose intoxicating scent tempted us 
to frequent stops. Then on again to overlook a magnifi- 
cence of blue and ochre canyons, down which we swooped 
and circled into Bisbee. 

Many-terraced as a Cornish village, Bisbee straddles 
a canyon and climbs two mountains in its effort to ac- 
commodate the workers who swarm its tortuous streets, 
and spend their days in its huge copper mines. When Bis- 
bee finds a mountain in its way, down goes the mountain, 
carried off by great steam shovels working day and night. 
But always beyond, another ring of hills holds her pris- 
oner. In the town's center lies a tiny, shut-in square into 
which streets of various levels trickle. Here at any day 
or any hour, agitators of one sort or another violently 
harangue small groups. There is always at this spot an 
air of unexploded tenseness. No wonder! Precious 
minerals imprisoned by Nature, — machinery fighting 
Mother Earth, — labor resisting capital, — conservatism 
against lawless radicalism, — greed against greed, — all 
braced to hold their own and push the other down; all 
pent in by the enclosing hills, and pressed down to the 
narrow confines of the little Plaza. No wonder the 
steam from these conflicting forces has at times blown the 
lid into the air. 

From this Plaza, during the war, gathered the citizens 
of Bisbee, and escorted to the Mexican border certain 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 123 

obstructionists claiming to be striking in the cause of 
labor. The suddenness of their taking off has been criti- 
cized, but its effectiveness was admirable. In the in- 
formality of the grim-purposed patriots who acted as 
body-guards on that dusty march south, one sees the old 
West, which emerged into law and order through similar 
bands of exasperated citizens. 

Friday the thirteenth, the date of our own exit from 
that picturesue and turbulent town, opened inauspiciously. 
A flat tire, incurred overnight, caused an hour's delay at 
the start. While we breakfasted at the Copper Queen, 
it again lost courage, and we had no choice but to thump 
downhill to the garage, near the great Copper Queen 
mine which daily levels mountains and fills up valleys. 
But our spare tire was found to be locked, and the 
key was in one of our seven suitcases. All work ceased 
till by a miracle of memory we recalled that the key 
was in a coat pocket, the coat was in a suitcase, the 
suitcase in the bottom of the trunk, — but where was the 
trunk key? More delay while we both searched our over- 
flowing handbags, — and nothing embarrasses a woman 
more than to have half a dozen men watch her futile 
dives into her handbag. At last it appeared, and in due 
time, when we had wrestled like born baggage-smashers 
with the heavy suitcases, opened the bottom one and 
found the key, repacked the suitcase, put it back, lifted the 
other four on top, locked the trunk, and replaced the 
other baggage, we unlocked the spare tire. It did not 
budge from the rim. Earlier that luckless morning, I had 
backed into an unexpected telegraph pole, jamming the 
spare tire braces out of shape. So the garage men went 
back and forth on futile errands, as garagemen will, pick- 



124 WESTWARD HOBOES 

ing tools up and dropping them again with an air of 
satisfied achievement. Finally a young Samson came to 
the rescue, bending the tire into place with his bare 
hands, and after that they took only an hour to change 
the tires. With the sun high in front of us, we drove 
through the smoke and fumes of the mines, past pretty 
suburbs, into the open plateau leading to Douglas. We 
expected to be in Deming that night. 

The mountains and canyons of yesterday subsided into 
a broad plain, with a poplar-bordered canal trickling 
prettily through it. At noon we sighted Douglas, a city 
of smoke-stacks simmering in a fog of coal gas. A once- 
good macadam road wound into an unsightly group of 
smelters and huge slag heaps, — the usual backdoor en- 
trance of a Western town, — and suddenly reformed into 
a main street, imposing with buildings so new they looked 
ill at ease among the old-settler lunch shacks and ex- 
saloons. Side streets beginning bravely from the new 
electric light pillars, became disheartened at the second 
block, and were smothered in sand at the third. 

To crown a banal hobby with the height of banality, 
I have for years amused myself wherever I may be by 
collecting postcards of Main Street looking South, or 
North, depending on the location of the public library 
and the fire station. Every orthodox postcard artist be- 
gins with Main Street. An extra charm to Main Street 
looking South in Douglas lay in its crossing the border 
and fizzling out into Mexico. Each time we had skirted 
the border, Mexico had beckoned alluringly, tempting us 
to discover what lay behind her drop curtain of monoto- 
nous blue and brown. 

A little band of Mexican Indians, clad in the rainbow, 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 125 

and making big eyes at the wonders of this gringo me- 
tropolis, staged a gaudy prologue. "They say you can't 
get into Mexico without a passport," mused Toby. 

"We might as well find out and be done with it," said I. 

A half mile led us to a row of government tents, fol- 
lowed by several buildings, — the first a low, wooden 
house, the second a neat, almost imposing two-story 
brick affair. Beyond was a smaller group, which we de- 
cided was the Mexican customs-house. 

A long man untangled himself from a couple of porch 
chairs, and sauntered out to the road, as we whizzed 
past the first cottage. He shouted something and held 
up his hand, but we failed to catch what he said. A mo- 
ment later we reached the fine looking brick house. A 
swarm of dark-complexioned gentlemen speaking an ex- 
citable language rushed out and surrounded our car. 
Toby gave a sigh of satisfaction. 

"They said you couldn't get in without a passport," 
said she. 

We were in Mexico. We could gather so much from 
the dazed attitude of the U. S. official, who stood en- 
veloped in our dust, staring after us, but still more from 
the flood of questions, increasingly insistent, which came 
from the bandit's chorus surrounding us. They seemed 
to be asking for something, — possibly our passports. 
Looking ahead, Mexico didn't seem worth our while. 
We saw only bare brown hills, sand and cactus. Per- 
haps, like Toby's namesake, we had better leave before 
being kicked out. I displayed our camera. 

"Take a picture? Turn round? Go back?" said I 
in purest Mexican. 

The bandit's chorus gathered in an interested if 



126 WESTWARD HOBOES 

puzzled group about the camera, and looked as if they 
were waiting for me to do a trick proving that the hand 
is quicker than the eye. After a few repetitions, aided 
by liberal gestures, they got our meaning and laughed, 
showing dazzling sets of teeth. 

"Take your pictures?" we added, at this sign of clem- 
ency. The Latin in them rejoiced at our tribute to their 
beauty. Two senoritas coming all the way from the 
Estados Unidos, passportless, braving the wrath of Car- 
ranza entirely because the gringoes were not handsome 
enough to snap! They straightened their uniforms, and 
curled their mustaches and flashed their teeth so bril- 
liantly that Toby had to use the smallest diaphragm of 
her kodak. Before they could unpose themselves, we 
were back in the United States. They started after, as 
if to assess us for ransom, or something, but too late. 

The U. S. official met us. "Why didn't you stop when 
I signaled?" 

"We didn't see you. We thought the brick building 
was the United States customs, — it's so much grander 
than yours." 

"Well, you're in luck," he said. "They could a held 
you there for months, confiscated your baggage, and 
made things pretty unpleasant generally. They're doing 
it all the time, under the name of official business. I tell 
you, I was scared when I saw you go through there." 

Grateful to him for taking this humane view rather 
than arresting us, we said good-by and went our way, ex- 
hilarated at having triumphed over the custom depart- 
ments of two nations in one short hour. It offset the 
morning's gloom, and the two horrible sandwiches (fried 
egg) with which Douglas had affronted our digestions. 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 127 

At three o'clock we reached Rodeo, which means 
"round-up." We should have been there at ten. The 
town faced the desert, and seemed permanently depressed 
at its outlook. It contained a few Mexican shanties, a 
garage and general store, and a poison-green architec- 
tural crime labeled "Rooms," surrounded by a field reek- 
ing with dead cattle. Even our Optimist, when he laid 
out our route, had exclaimed, "If your night's stop is 
Rodeo, Lord help you !" The next town, Deming, lay a 
hundred miles beyond, with no settlement between. We 
looked once at the hotel, bought gas at fifty cents the gal- 
lon, and pushed on. 

Whether we would reach Deming that night, we had 
no idea. Nearly a day, as desert travel goes, lay between 
us and food, drink and shelter. We had an orange apiece, 
and our folding tent, stove and lantern. We had a guide- 
book which, to escape a libel suit, I shall call "Keyes' 
Good Road Book," though it was neither a good road- 
book nor a good-road book. We had an abounding faith 
in guardian angels. Lastly, we had Toby's peculiar gift 
at reading guide-books, whereby she selects a page at 
random, regardless of our route, telescopes paragraphs 
together, skips a line here and there, and finishes in an- 
other state. 

For this reason, as I pointed out with some heat, we 
took a road which led fourteen jolty miles out of our way. 
It came out that Toby had been reading the Colorado 
section. So chastened was she by this misadventure that 
at the next doubtful corner, where a windmill marked 
two forks, she kept her nose glued to the page and read 
with meticulous faithfulness, "Pass wind-mill to the left." 

Now the left led through a muddy water-hole, while an 



128 WESTWARD HOBOES 

excellent road apparently trailed to the right of the wind- 
mill. 

"Left?" I inquired, with pointed skepticism, "or 
right?" 

She peeked again into the guidebook, and answered 
firmly, "Left!" 

Toby was right for once, but she had chosen the mo- 
ment to be right when the guidebook was wrong, which 
entirely canceled her score. I drove into the chuck-hole, 
— and stayed there. The hole was V shaped, two feet 
deep at the point, and shelved so steeply that our spare 
tires made a barrier against its edge when we tried to 
back out. We were following Horace Greeley's advice 
literally. We had gone West, and now we were settling 
down with the country. We settled to our running board, 
then to our hubs, and then over them. It was the more 
exasperating because our car was immersed in the only 
water hole within a hundred miles. 

We got out and surveyed the road to the right. It 
proved to be an excellent detour, which a few yards 
further joined the left fork. This was the last straw. I 
left Toby, who was trying to redeem her criminal rec- 
titude by busying herself with the jack, and went out hat- 
less into the scorching desert, like a Robert Hichens 
heroine. My objective was not Oblivion, but the cross- 
roads two miles back, where with luck I might still hail a 
passing car. 

Though the sun was low, the heat drove down scorch- 
ingly. Only the necktie I tied about my forehead saved 
me from sunstroke. It was bright green, and must have 
made me look like an Apache; I had the consciousness of 
being appropriately garbed. At the crossroad half an 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 129 

hour's wait brought no car to the rescue. Night was too 
near for anyone with commonsense to start across that 
uncharted waste. Obviously I could not wait longer, 
leaving poor Toby to fish disconsolately, as I had last 
glimpsed her, in the mud. Obviously, too, if I returned 
nobody would know of our plight, and I should have my 
four-mile walk for nothing. 

Looking aimlessly for help in this dilemma, my eye 
caught a scrap of a poster on a fence rail, which savagely 
and in minute pieces, I tore down and scattered to the 
desert. The poster read, "Keyes' Good Road Book. It 
Takes You Where You Want to Go." 

Heaven knows neither I nor Toby, with all her faults, 
wanted to land in that chuck-hole. After I tore the pos- 
ter, I wished I had saved it to inscribe a message to the 
passerby. "Well, take your medicine," thought I. "You 
have no right to get into any situation you can't get out 
of. Think of David Balfour and Admirable Crichton 
and Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe. What, 
for instance, would Robinson Crusoe do?" 

Undoubtedly he would have found a way out. I only 
had to think constructively, putting myself in his place. 
The thought alone was stimulating. Gifted with omnis- 
cience in hydrostatics and mechanics, he would probably 
have skinned a few dead cattle, with which the desert 
reeked, made a rope, fastened it about the car's body, 
looped it over the windmill, and hoisted it free, — and 
been half way to Deming by this time. As for that copy- 
cat Mrs. Swiss Family Robinson, she would certainly 
have produced a puU-me-out from her insufferable work- 
bag. 

How would Crusoe have left a message without pencil 



I30 .WESTWARD HOBOES 

or paper? I knew. Collecting handfuls of large white 
stones, — white, because darkness was imminent, I ar- 
ranged them at the crossroads in letters two feet long, 
reading, 

2 MI. 

WINDMILL 

HELP! 

I added an arrow to point the direction. And then, to 
make sure that my sign was noticed, I placed a few sharp 
stones in the ruts. These would probably puncture his 
tire, and in looking for the cause, he would observe our 
appeal and come to our rescue. It took a long while to 
collect enough white stones to make the sign, but when 
I had finished I felt much elated, and more kindly toward 
Toby for reading the guide book right when she should 
have read it wrong. It was cooler walking back, though 
my tongue was swollen with thirst. Our canteen had 
displayed a leak only yesterday, and we had tossed it into 
the sagebrush. 

At the windmill I found the car partly jacked up, so 
that she careened drunkenly to one side, but her right 
dashboard was now above water. Toby's skirt was caked 
with mud, and her shoes and stockings plastered with 
it. She seemed depressed. She explained she had slipped 
trying to balance on a plank, and had fallen in the chuck- 
hole. 

"This pool is full of dead cattle," she said, dolefully. 
"I just put my finger in something's eye." 

About to take off shoes and stockings and wade into 
the pool, something gave me pause. Gingerly we stood 
on the brink, and poked planks where the mud was 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 131 

thickest, in the forlorn hope of making a stable bottom. 
Alas, they only sank, and vexed us by protruding on end 
whenever we tried to back the old lady. We knew the 
first step was to jack the rear wheels, but while we raised 
one wheel, the other sank so deep In the mud that we 
could get neither plank nor jack under it. After many 
embittered attempts we gave it up, and tried placing the 
jack under the springs. It worked beautifully; in a few 
seconds the body of the car was a foot higher, and seemed 
willing to continue her soaring indefinitely. We took 
turns jacking; still she rose. We were greatly encouraged. 
After several minutes Toby said, "The jack's at the top 
notch, — what shall I do next?" 

It was so easy we might have guessed there was a 
catch somewhere. To our astonishment we discovered 
that in rising, the body of the car had not taken the 
wheels with it. Two feet of daylight gaped between 
mudguard and wheels. A moment more, and the two 
would have parted company forever. Jacking is easy 
in theory, or in a garage, but the trouble with the out- 
door art is that the car usually lands in a position where 
it has to be jacked up in order to get planks under it in 
order to jack it up. "Pou sto," said Archimedes, defin- 
ing our dilemma succinctly. 

New Mexico boasts an inhabitant to every eight square 
miles, but the member for our district continued to ignore 
our invasion of his realm. Two fried egg sandwiches, 
consumed that noon, was — or were — our only sustenance 
that day. We were so hungry we sounded hollow to the 
touch. Our mouths felt like flannel, and our throats 
burned with thirst. Not forty feet away a stream of pure 
water ran from the windmill. But it ran from a slippery 



132 WESTWARD HOBOES 

lead pipe which extended a dozen feet over a reservoir. 
The water was there, but we could not get at it without a 
plunge bath. Muddy and weary, we worked on without 
courage. 

At sundown, from one of the other squares ap- 
peared the Inhabitant on horseback, driving some cows 
to our cattle-hole. He was a youth of sixteen, running 
mostly to adenoids and Adam's apple, which worked agi- 
tatedly at sight of us, but his eyelashes any beauty 
specialist would envy. As to his voice, the strain of mak- 
ing it reach across eight miles to the next Inhabitant had 
exhausted it,, or perhaps embarrassment silenced him; 
we could not get a word out of him till he had watered his 
cattle and started away. Then emboldened by having his 
back safely to us, he shouted that at a house, a "coupla 
miles southeast," we might find a team, — and vanished 
into nowhere. 

Toby had by this time managed to crawl out on the 
lead pipe, and after gyrations fascinating to watch, cap- 
tured a pail of water. Drinking eagerly, we set out for 
the house the Inhabitant indicated, with the pail in our 
hands to guard against future thirst. Sunset was making 
transparent the low mountain range skirting our valley, 
when we left. The sand filled our shoes, and the per- 
sistent "devil's claw," zealous to propagate its kind, clung 
to our feet with a desperate grip. Our pail became heavy, 
but we dared not empty it. At last we reached the ranch. 
A half-starved dog sprang out eagerly to meet us. The 
house was deserted; there were no teams to pull us out, 
nor any food to give the poor, famishing beast. He 
watched us leave, with a hurt, baffled look in his brown 
eyes, as if patiently marveling at the inhumanity of man. 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 133 

From the ranch, we glimpsed another house, a mile fur- 
ther away, and again we started hopefully for it, while 
a horned moon circled up a pink sky. The desert from 
a barren, ugly waste was become unbelievably lovely 
in the transfiguring twilight. 

The crescent moon brought us no luck, for we saw 
it over our left shoulders. It was still Friday the Thir- 
teenth. The second house, even to the hungry dog, du- 
plicated the first. It stood dismantled and deserted. We 
saw nothing ahead but a ten mile tramp to Rodeo in the 
dark, the poison green hotel, and "Lord help us!" what- 
ever that meant. 

Our flashlight was in the car. To return for it meant 
three more weary miles. Toby was for risking the 
road without it, but my sixth sense warned me to return, 
and I persuaded her to this course. As we crossed the 
desert the dim shape of our marooned machine loomed 
up in the dusk. And beside it — 

"Another mirage !" 

"Where?" asked weary Toby, indifferently. At this 
moment the wonders of Nature meant nothing to her. 

"There seem to be two cars, — I can see them quite 
plainly." 

"There are two cars," said Toby, and we ran, the pail 
slopping water on our feet. 

With a broad grin on each face, two men watched us 
approach. They were young; I judged them thirty 
and thirty-five. They stopped just short of being 
armed to the teeth. Each wore a cartridge belt, and 
they shared two rifles and a revolver. The older and the 
more moderately arsenaled, looked like a parson. The 
younger wore a tan beaver sombrero, of the velvety, 



134 WESTWARD HOBOES 

thirty-dollar kind proclaiming its owner a cow-puncher, 
an old-timer, a hard boiled egg who doesn't care who 
knows it. His shirt was of apple-green flannel, his small, 
high boots festooned with stitching and escalloped with 
colored leather like a Cuban taxi, his purple neckerchief 
was knotted with a ring carved from ox-bone, and from 
his cartridge belt in a carved leather case hung the largest 
revolver I ever saw. His generous silver spurs were 
cut in the shape of spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs. 
Montgomery Ward, Marshall Field and Sears-Roebuck 
combined never turned out a more indisputable vachero. 
We greeted them with joy; their happy grins told us 
they would see us through our difficulties. It was nine by 
the village clock of Rodeo, if they had one, which I doubt. 
It was not the sort of town which would have a clock, 
or even an Ingersoll. 

"You girls nearly caught us pullin' out," Sears- 
Roebuck greeted us. "We figured how the feller who 
owned this car would be cussin' mad, and we was plannin' 
to stick around to hear his language, an' then we seen 
women's things in the seat, so we jest had our supper 
here, while we waited for you." 

It never would have happened east of Chicago. They 
had waited nearly two hours that they might do us the 
favor of another hour's hard work in setting us on dry 
land again. They had been "making time" for El Paso, 
and the delay spoiled a half day for them, but they did 
not complain. They acted as if persuading our dinosaur 
from her nest of mud were a most delightful joke, — on 
us, themselves and the car. They did not regard what 
they were doing as a favor, but as their sole business 
and recreation in life. In sheer high spirits, Biron, 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 135 

as he speedily introduced himself, — the giddier of the 
two in dress and deportment, — whooped, cleared the 
mud-hole in one leap, and pretended to lassoo the inert 
machine. The other, smiling benevolently at his antics, 
went steadily to the serious work of harnessing the car. 

Toby made a jesting remark to Biron about the re- 
volver hanging at his belt, not from fear but as a 
pleasantry. Misunderstanding, he unslung it instantly, 
and tossed it into his car. 

*'I don't want that thing," he elaborated, "it gets in 
my way." 

They got to work in earnest, with great speed and skill. 
Twice the rope which they hitched to their car broke as 
we turned on our power. Meanwhile the old lady 
churned herself deeper into the mud, skulls, and shin- 
bones of the pool. After an hour's work, with much 
racing of the engine, and a Niagara of splashing mud 
which covered us all from head to foot, she stirred, 
heaved over on one side, and groaning like seven devils 
commanded to come out, lumbered to terra firma, loom- 
ing beside the pert wrecking car like Leviathan dug out 
with an hook. 

After all, it was a glorious Thirteenth. No sensation 
is more exhilarating than to be rescued from a mud-hole 
which seemed likely to envelop one for life. Even the 
slender arc of the young moon, in that clear air, poured 
a silver flood over the desert, now a mysterious veil of 
luminous blue. The vibrant heat waves of day had risen 
and twisted into the thin air, and frosty currents swept 
and freshened the simmering earth. The elder, a slow- 
speaking chap from Tucson, gravely filled our radiator 
from the reservoir, filled his canteen and offered us a 



136 WESTWARD HOBOES 

drink, and then asked us if we had eaten supper. We 
bravely fibbed, with hunger gnawing within, not wishing 
to put ourselves further in their debt. As they prepared 
to leave I was uncomfortably reminded we had no break- 
fast for next morning, and no water, owing to our can- 
teenless state. They were our food and drink — and we 
were letting them depart! 

But I wanted to make sure what they would do next. 
In businesslike fashion they started their car, then bade 
us a cordial good-by. They made no hint toward con- 
tinuing our acquaintance, nor asked our plans, and even 
the merry Biron showed only an impersonal twinkle as 
he shook hands. So I spoke, choosing between apple 
jelly for breakfast, and ham, eggs, coffee and impro- 
priety. 

"Would you mind if we followed you and camped 
somewhere near?" 

They accepted our company with the same jovial en- 
thusiasm with which they had met us, — Biron I thought a 
trifle too jovial, but Tucson steady as a Christian En- 
deavorer. They jumped in their car, took the lead, and 
in the dark we streaked after their red lantern, over thirty 
miles of "malpais." 

We had been warned of "malpais" in the untrust- 
worthy Keyes, but without knowing what it meant. Sev- 
eral thousand years ago, the tire trust manipulated a 
geologic cataclysm which strewed millions of needle- 
pointed granite stones over our road. To drive a newly- 
tired car over malpais hurts one's sensibilities as much 
as to stick a safety-pin into a baby, with the difference 
that the baby recovers. Over chuck-holes, down grades, 
into arroyos, always over malpais we dashed after their 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 137 

bobbing light, terrified lest a puncture should deprive us 
of their guardianship. Thirty miles of weariness and 
mental anguish at the injury we did our springs and tires 
gave way to relief when the red lantern suddenly turned 
to the left, and we found ourselves in an open, treeless 
field. We sank to the ground, worn out with waiting for 
the "plop" that never sounded. 

Save for a waning moon, it was pitch dark. We were 
on a high tableland, with looming hills completely en- 
closing us. For the first time, it occurred to me that 
here we were unarmed, at midnight, fifty miles from a 
settlement, at the mercy of two men fully armed, whom 
we had known two hours. What was to prevent them 
from killing or wounding us, taking our car, and aban- 
doning us in that lonely spot where we should never be 
found? Or, as the novelist says, — Worse? I could see 
Toby gripped by the same terror. Chaperoned only by 
the Continental Divide, with not even a tree to dodge 
behind if they pointed their arsenal our way, we won- 
dered for a fleeting moment if we had done wisely. ^""^^ 

Our neighbors for the night pulled two bedding rolls 
from their car, threw them on the ground, and announced 
they had made their camp. An awkward moment fol- 
lowed. We looked for a sheltered place for our tent, 
but there was none. Seeming to have no other motive 
than that, lacking a tree, we had to sling our tent-rope 
over the car, we managed to use the old lady as a discreet 
chaperone, placing her in front of our tent-door, which 
we could enter by crawling over the running-board. 

With widening smiles they took it all in; took in our / 
efforts to be ladies, took in our folding stove, folding 
lantern and tiny air pillows. As we put together our 



138 WESTWARD HOBOES 

folding shovel and proceeded to dig a hip trench, their 
politeness cracked, and a chuckle oozed out. 

"My!" said Tucson, as profanely as that, "you're all 
fixed up for camping out, aint ye?" 

Our tent invited, after our weary day, but an expec- 
tant something in our host's manner made us hesitate. 
Politeness, ordinary gratitude in fact, since we had noth- 
ing but our company to offer, seemed to demand that we 
visit awhile. We sat on a bedding roll; Biron joined us, 
while the parson-like Tucson took the one nearby. 

"Was you ever anyways near to being hung?" 

Biron shied a pebble at a cactus as he put this question. 
All in all, it was as good a conversational opening as the 
weather, — not so rock-ribbed, perhaps, but with more 
dramatic possibilities. 

"No," I said, "I don't think I ever was. Were you, 
Toby?" 

It was mean of me to ask her. Toby hates to be out- 
done, or admit her experiences have been incomplete. 
I saw her agile mind revolving for some adventure in her 
past that she could bring up as a creditable substitute, 
but she had never been anywhere near to being hung, and 
she knew I knew it. 

"H'm-m," she said noncommittally, her inflection im- 
plying tremendous reserves, — "were you?" 

"Onct," replied Biron, "only onct. But if anyone ever 
tells you he was near hanging, and was brave under the 
circumstances, don't you believe him. There I was with 
the rope around my neck, and I a hollerin' and a squealin' 
like a baby, and beggin' to be let off. There aint no man 
livin', I'll say, feelin' them pullin' and sawin' away on 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 139 

his neck that aint a goin' to bawl and cry an' beg f'r 
mercy." 

"What was the — occasion — if you don't mind our ask- 
ing?" 

Biron shied another stone at the cactus and missed. 

"Well, you see," he raced along, "another feller had 
stole some horses, an' knowin' how he come by them an' 
all that, I jest sorter relieved him of them. An' I was 
a ridin' along toward Mexico when they caught up with 
me. 

"But I thought they no longer hanged people for, — er 
—for " 

"Horse stealin'? They don't much, but y'see this 
feller had happened to kill a coupla men gettin' away, and 
when they seen me with the horses he started off with they 
natch'ally thought I was the one done it all." 

How dark and gloomy looked the encircling hills ! 

"They got the rope on me, and my feet was off the 
ground, but I blubbered so hard bimeby they let me off." 

He looked at Tucson with a glance that seemed to 
share a common experience. 

"I aint sayin' I didn't do other things they might 'a 
got me for " 

Tucson nodded, and opened his slow mouth to speak, 
but the nimbler Biron cut in. 

"Oh, I been pretty bad some times. Any feller thirty 
years old or so, if he gits to thinkin' all the fool things 
he's done, he's likely to kill himself laughin'." 

Tucson nodded gravely. "I reckon " 

"We uster to go down to the border, to them Mexican 
dances, to have fun with the Mexican girls. They have 
music an' everthin' an' the greasers sit on one side of the 



I40 WESTWARD HOBOES 

hall and the girls on the other. We'd mix in and take the 
girls away from the men, an' every time the big bull fiddle 
give a whoop, we'd take a drink of mescal. Then we'd 
go shoot up the town. Whenever we'd kill a Mexican, 
we'd put a notch on our gun, as long as the' was room. I 
knowed one feller, Tom Lee by name, knowed him well, 
they say accounted for five hundred, all in all." 

"And didn't you get into trouble with the law?" 

"Law?" Biron snorted. "Law? They aint no law 
against shootin' dawgs, is they?" 

His seemed a reasonable attitude, demonstrating the 
superiority of a real American over the contemptible 
greaser. This excitable mixture of half a dozen in- 
ferior and treacherous races turns ugly when our boys, 
out for a harmless lark where it will do least harm, shoot 
up his towns and his neighbors, and violate his women. 
Then the Mexican uses a knife. No decent man uses a 
knife. And so our border is kept in a state of constant 
turmoil. 

"There aint no harm potting Mexicans," continued 
Biron, "especially when they get fresh. The Mexican 
girls aint so bad. Sometimes an American will marry 
one, but it has to be a pretty low white girl that will marry 
a greaser." 

"That's so. I — " drawled Tucson. He seemed col- 
lecting his slower wits for a narration, but Biron rattled 
on. 

"This Lee is out hidin' somewhere now, in the moun- 
tains, — him and his brother. The sheriff shot at him just 
as he was ridin' past a glass window, and cut his eye 
half out so it hung down on his face. But he got away 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 141 

into the canyons, and was ridin' with them on his heels for 
three days and nights, with his eye like that." 

"Then the law did try to redress the murder of those 
five hundred Mexicans." 

"I guess not. They was after him for committing a 
crime, and serve him right, — he tried to evade the 
draft." 

"They was two ignorant boys," explained Parson 
Tucson to me, "raised in the backwoods, who didn't 
rightly know what the draft was for, or they wouldn't 
have done it." 

The attitude of both men was gravely patriotic. Yet 
one could see they cherished the idea of the outlawed 
boys, eighteen and twenty, who could bear with tradi- 
tional stoicism such unendurable pain. The West clings 
pathetically to these proofs that its old romantic life is 
not yet extinct, even though it is but the wriggle which 
dies at sunset. Stories like those of Biron's are still told 
with gusto even amid the strangest familiarity with Vic- 
trolas, — though the saloon is replaced by the soda foun- 
tain, and the only real cowboys are on film, and the hardy 
tenderfoot now rides so well, shoots so well and knows 
his West so well that he is an easy mark for the native, 
only when the latter tries to sell him an oil well, an 
irrigated ranch, or a prehistoric skull. 

We made a move for our tent, but Biron had not 
finished his thirty years' Odyssey. He had lightly 
skipped from tales of outlawry to big game, and the 
dangers of the hunt. He was now among the Mormons, 
and the subject was deftly moon-lit with sentiment. He 
was enjoying himself, and he glanced from one to the 
other of us as he rattled on. 



142 WESTWARD HOBOES 

"Up in the Mormon country, I met two Mormon girls, 
only I didn't know what they was, and was cussin' the 
Mormons and what I thought of them, when one of 
them ast me what I thought of Mormon girls, so then I 
caught on. So I expressed a little of what I thought of 
them, an' we got on fine. She ast me to a dance, an' I 
said I'd go if I could ride back to my bed in time to get 
my other pants. But it was a day's trip, an' I couldn't 
make it. I meant to go back later, to ask some questions 
of her, — personal ones, I mean, — " he took time to hit 
the cactus blossom squarely, — "relating to matrimony, if 
you know what I mean. But I never did get to go back." 

Now like most men, the westerner recognizes two 
kinds of women, but with this distinction; — he permits 
her to classify herself while he respects her classification. 
The Merry One seemed to be leading up to a natural 
transition. 

"I don't know nothin' about love. Jest kinder cold, I 
am, like a stone." He snickered softly. 

"Truly?" said Toby, innocently interested. "Why is 
that?" 

He shied a pebble at the long-suffering cactus. 

"Jest my nature, I reckon. My French blood. Didn't 
you know all Frenchmen was marble-hearted?" 

Tucson beamed slowly, like a benevolent minister of 
the gospel. 

"Toby," I said, "you have yawned twice in the last five 
minutes." 

Toby never needs to hear the word bed repeated. She 
got to her feet, sleepily. 

"We can't thank you enough for all you've done to- 
day," I went on in a cordial way. "All through the west 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 143 

we have met with the greatest help and courtesy. Peo- 
ple ask us if we're afraid to travel alone, but we always 
tell them not when we are among westerners." 

Tucson beamed, bless his heart, at my model speech, 
and found tongue. "That's right," he said, leaning to- 
ward us earnestly, "There won't nobody hurt you in this 
country." 

We shook hands all around. As we were nearing our 
tent, Biron followed us with something in his hand, which 
he proffered with the flourish of an eighteenth century 
marquis. 

"Here," he said, "take this." I jumped. It was his 
ferocious revolver. 

"What is this for?" we asked. 

"For protection." 

"Against what?" 

"Against us." 

"Oh, no, thank you. We feel quite safe without it," 
we prevaricated. 

"Go ahead and take it," said Biron, politely stubborn. 

Here was a dilemma. Could one accept such an offer 
from one's hosts, even though on their own confession 
unhonored and unhung horse thieves, light-hearted mur- 
derers and easy philanderers? And yet he seemed so 
sure we should need it. 

"Never for that reason," I said, thinking to make a 
graceful exit from the dilemma, "still if all the stories 
you have told us of wild animals and outlaws " 

Biron blocked my exit; "You needn't worry about 
them,'' he chuckled mirthfully, "But you don't know what 
ructions we may raise in the night." 

"Better take it," Toby whispered. So we bore our 



144 WESTWARD HOBOES 

arms to our tent, where they helped us pass a restless 
night. When I did not wake in a cold agony from dream- 
ing I had rolled over on the pistol and exploded it, Toby 
would wake me to warn me against the same fate. I 
think we would have been happier if we had relied on 
the honor system. Once a shriek and a roar startled us 
awake, and a half mile away a Southern Pacific express 
streamed by like a silver streak. Occasionally a placid 
snore from Tucson reached us, and once an old white 
ghost of a horse, her bones making blue shadows in the 
moonlight, crunched at our tent posts, and fled kicking 
terrified kicks as I looked out to investigate. 

Later sleep came, deep sleep, from which Toby woke 
me. Toby is brave, but her whisper had a tremolo. 
"There's a wild animal of some sort, butting against 
the tent." 

I looked out cautiously. "It's a huge bull," I re- 
ported. Toby shuddered. A moment later I saw it was 
only a moderate sized cow, but to impress Toby I did 
not mention this discovery, as I boldly left the tent and 
approached the beast. She was chewing with gusto a 
shapeless mass lying on the ground, — was it a calf? 
Was she a cannibal among cows, an unnatural mother? 
She muzzled it, licked it, and tossed it in the air, where 
against the setting moon her smile of delight was sil- 
houetted like the cow in Mother Goose. I took courage 
to investigate her new form of caviar, — and found she 
had chewed our new yellow slicker, in which we wrapped 
everything which would not go anywhere else, into a 
slimy, pulpy mass. To her hurt astonishment, she was 
immediately parted from her find, and went galloping 
off into the brush. It seemed cruel to break up her mid- 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 145 

night revel, but at the rate her new taste was developing 
we should not have had a tire left by morning. 

Before going back to sleep, I looked about me. Long 
gray shadows drifted over from the low range of black 
hills which cupped our camp. The air, crisp, and faintly 
scented with sage, exhilarated me with a sense of wild 
freedom. Often, in the East, I am awakened by that 
scent, and am filled with a homesick longing to go back. 
It Is not sage alone, but the thousands of little aromatic 
plants graying the desert imperceptibly, the odor blown 
across hills and plains of charred camp fires, bitter and 
pungent, the strong smell of bacon and sweated leather, 
all mingled and purified in millions of cubic feet of ether. 
Two blue-black masses stirred, and a sigh and a chuckle 
came from our sleeping Galahads. No danger of "ruc- 
tions" from that quarter now. I went back to our 
lumpy bed, put the revolver outside the tent, and fastened 
the flap. A few minutes sped by, and I was startled 
awake by a gunshot, thunderous in my ears. 

Toby and I sat up. It was broad daylight. We 
peered under the car cautiously. Tucson had built a fire, 
and a coffee-pot sat atop, which he soberly tended. Biron 
swanked about in his fleecy chaps, shooting into the air. 

"Come alive, girls," he called, tossing a flapjack at us. 
"Throw that into your sunburned hides." 

We obeyed this playboy of our Western world with- 
out demur. We had barely eaten since the previous 
morning. At eight we were off. Our car had no spare 
tire, two broken spring leaves, and a dustpan which 
dragged on the ground, loosened by miles of high centers. 
Our friends were in haste to reach El Paso, so we sug- 
gested they leave us, but they refused, and became our 



146 WESTWARD HOBOES 

body guard as far as Deming, stopping when we did, 
mending our dustpan with a bit of stolen fence wire, 
getting water and gas for us at Hachita, a dismal little 
collection of shanties which Biron regretfully described 
as "the wickedest town in the United States, before pro- 
hibition spoiled it. Yessir, prohibition Is what ruined 
New Mexico." 

In the midst of a swirling sand storm we said good-by 
to our friends and asked their names and addresses in 
order to send them some photographs we had taken. 
Biron gave his readily, — "Manchester, N. H., is where 
I was born, but most of my folks live In Fall River, 
Mass." 

It was not the address we expected from a man who 
had seen worse deeds than Jesse James. It was out of 
the picture, somehow. I knew Manchester, N. H., and 
had met nothing in the town so tough and bad as Biron 
had described himself, unless It were the sandwiches sold 
in the Boston and Maine station. When we turned to 
Tucson for his name, we were prepared to have him 
give the address of a theological seminary, and again we 
were surprised. For Tucson hesitated and stammered, 
and took longer recalling his name than is usually needed. 
I remembered a remark Biron threw off the night be- 
fore, — "a man gets to calling himself a lot of different 
names in this country," and snickered, while Tucson 
remained grave as a judge. I wondered, If his voluble 
friend had given him a chance, whether Tucson might 
have told us something Interesting. However, Tucson 
had just discovered a copper vein on his land, and as this 
book goes to print may already be a respectable Fifth 
Avenue millionaire. 



FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 147 

As we thanked them and said good-by, Toby said, "We 
can't be too grateful you saw our sign in the road." 

"Sign? What sign?" 

"Didn't you see a sign made of white pebbles on the 
road from Rodeo, asking for help?" 

"No, we didn't see no sign. We didn't come from 
Rodeo. We came the other road, — over the hills." 

There it is. No matter how much one does as Robin- 
son Crusoe would have done, the other characters will 
not play up to their opportunities. Instead of following 
your footprints cunningly, step by step, they will insist on 
catching sight of you across lots, completely spoiling the 
climax. No doubt Crusoe was firm with infringers on 
his plot. Probably when they came by the wrong road, 
he refused to be rescued till they had gone back and done 
the thing properly. 

But then, we were very glad to be rescued at all. 



CHAPTER XII 

WHY ISLETA's church HAS A WOODEN FLOOR 

¥ TI 7E had trailed spring up from Texas through Ari- 
V V zona, timing our progress so cleverly that it 
seemed as if we had only to turn our radiator's nose 
down a desert path for blue lupin and golden poppies to 
blaze up before us. At last we reached the meeting of 
the Rockies with the Rio Grande in New Mexico, led 
by the devious route, sometimes a concrete avenue, but 
oftener a mere track in the sand, of the old Spanish 
highway. El Camino Real is the imposing name it bears, 
suggesting ancient caravans of colonial grandees, and 
pack-trains bearing treasure from Mexico City to the 
provincial trading-post of Santa Fe. Even today what 
sign-posts the road displays bear the letters K T, which 
from Mexico to Canada stand for King's Trail. The 
name gave us a little thrill, to be still extant in a govern- 
ment which had supposedly repudiated kings this century 
and a half. 

From San Anton' on, as we left behind us the big 
mushroom cities of Texas, the country became more and 
more sparsely settled. The few people we met, mostly 
small farmers ploughing their fields primitively, bade us 
a courteous good day in Spanish, for in this country 
Mexico spills untidily into the United States. We soon 
forgot altogether that we were in the States. First we 

came upon a desert country, vast and lonely, with golden 

148 



ISLETA'S CHURCH 149 

sand in place of grass, spiny, stiff-limbed cactus for trees, 
and strangely colored cliffs of lemon and orange and 
livid white. After days of this desolation we emerged 
upon the valley of the Rio Grande where its many tribu- 
taries rib the desert as they run from snowy peaks to 
join its muddy red waters. The air here is crystal keen, 
warmed by intense sun, cooled by mountain winds, and 
sweetened by millions of pifions dotting the red hillsides. 
Lilac and blue mountains ring the valley on both sides, 
and from them emerald fields of alfalfa, sparkling in the 
sun, slope down to the old, winding stream. Because its 
silt is so fertile, one race has succeeded another here 
— cliff-dwellers, Indian, Spanish, Mexican, and American 
— and a remnant of each, save the earliest, has clung 
where living is easy. So we came all along the Rio 
Grande for a hundred miles to little groups of towns, 
each allotted to a different race keeping itself to itself, 
Mexican, American, and Indian. 

It was under the deep-blue night sky that we saw our 
first pueblo town. Out of the plains, it came surprisingly 
upon us. Solitary meadows with bands of horses graz- 
ing upon them, a gleam of light from an adobe Inn at a 
crossroad, a stretch of darkness, strange to our desert- 
accustomed senses because of the damp breath from the 
river and snow-capped peaks beyond — then the barking 
and yelping of many mongrel dogs, and we were at once 
precipitated Into the winding, barnyard-cluttered alleys 
of Isleta, feeling our way through blind twists and turns, 
blocked by square, squat gray walls of incredible repose 
and antiquity, caught in the mesh of a sleeping town. 
Instantly we had a sense, though no light was struck 
nor any voice heard through the darkness, of 



I50 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Isleta awake and alert, quickening to our Invasion. 

We were already a little awed by our encounter with 
the Rio Grande. Since twilight and quickly falling night 
came on, we had crossed and recrossed the sullen brown 
waters many times, feeling Its menacing power, like a 
great sluggish reptile biding its time, not the less because 
the suspension bridges above it creaked and swung and 
rattled under our weight. The mystery of driving after 
dark in an unfamiliar country sharpened our suscepti- 
bilities to outside impressions. We felt the river wait- 
ing for us, like a watchful crocodile; a sudden misturn 
in the shadows, or a missing plank from a bridge, and 
our vague sensation of half-fear, half-delight, might at 
any moment be crystallized by disaster. It was a night 
when something dramatic might fittingly happen, when 
the stage-setting kept us on the sharp edge of suspense. 

The Pueblo Indian, we had heard, differed from other 
Indians, being gentler and more peaceably Inclined than 
the Northern races. We were not such tenderfeet as to 
fear violence, scalping, or sudden war-whoops from 
ochre-smeared savages. But it was our first experience 
with Indians (the first in our lives, in fact), save those 
tamed nomads who peddle sweet-grass baskets and pre- 
dict handsome husbands along the New England beaches. 
We were a little expectant, a little keyed to apprehension. 
We knew, as if we had been told, that a hundred or more 
of this alien race had waked from their sleep, and lay 
with tightened muscles waiting for the next sound. In- 
creased yelping from the mongrel pack might bring them 
swarming about our car, and we had no experience in 
dealing with them; no knowledge of their prejudices or 
language to trade with. In our haste we circled through 



ISLETA'S CHURCH 151 

the town twice, threading corrals and back yards. Sud- 
denly, the town still tensely silent, we emerged into a 
shallow plaza. Crossing directly before our lights came 
a young man, tall and supple, his straight short locks 
bound with a scarlet fillet, his profile clear and patrician, 
and over his shoulders a scarlet robe, covering his white 
cotton trousers. As he passed us, unmoved and stolid, he 
spoke one word of salutation, and continued on his way 
across the silent plaza. 

Simple as was the incident, the flash of scarlet against 
the blue-black sky, the dignity and silence of the Indian, 
made the climax we had been awaiting. Nothing else 
happened. But It had been a night whose setting was so 
sharply defined, its premonitions so vibrantly tense with 
drama, that only that little was needed to carve it on 
our memory. 

We saw the town later, in broad daylight, swept by an 
unclean sand-storm, pitilessly stripped of romantic at- 
mosphere. But the romance was obscured, not oblite- 
rated, for its roots are sunk deep in the past. Isleta has 
one of the finest built-up estufas of the pueblo towns. 
It has a thousand inhabitants, whose proximity to the 
railroad gives them the blessing or curse of the white 
man's civilization. It has a church, whose ancient adobe 
flanks have been topped by two wooden bird-cages for 
steeples, for when the Indian adopts our ideas, his taste 
is rococo; when he clings to his own art, he shows a 
native dignity and simplicity. Lastly, Isleta has a ghost, 
well authenticated, and attested to by a cardinal, an 
archbishop, a governor, and other dignitaries, to say 
nothing of Juan Pancho, a man who does not lie. It is 
probably the oldest ghost in the United States. 



152 WESTWARD HOBOES 

About the time of the first Spanish penetration into 
the Southwest, a friar made his way to the Pueblo coun- 
try through the hostile tribes to the east. In one of the 
towns north of Santa Fe, probably Tesuque, he found 
shelter and a home. The friendly Indians, although 
keeping him half-prisoner, treated him kindly. He soon 
gained their respect and affection, as he applied his 
knowledge of medicine to their physical, and as a priest 
administered to their spiritual needs, without giving of- 
fense to the Pueblos' own beliefs. He seems to have 
been a gentle and tactful creature, who won his way by 
the humane Christianity of his daily life. Gradually, as 
they became better acquainted with him, they admitted 
him to the inner circle of village life, even to the sacred 
ceremonies and underground rituals of the klva. He was 
taught the significance of their medicine and of their 
tribal and religious symbols. Almost forgetting his alien 
blood, they had made him one of themselves on the day, 
twenty years later, when news came of the approach of 
armed conquistadores, with Coronado at their head, 
seeking plunder and the treasures of Cibola the legend- 
ary. Whether such treasure existed has never been 
known. If it did, the secret was closely guarded by the 
Indians. Perhaps the monk had been made their con- 
fidant. At any rate, he knew enough to make certain 
factions in the tribe regard him as an element of danger, 
when he should again meet with men of his own race, 
hostile to the people of his adoption. Would he remain 
true, thus tempted? It was a question of race against 
individual loyalty, and one Indian, more fanatic and sus- 
picious than his brothers, cut the Gordian knot of the 





















-*#.#.■ 



ISLETA'S CHURCH 153 

difficulty with a dagger, planted squarely in the back 
of the God-fearing friar. 

The gentle Pueblos, horrified by this act of personal 
treachery, which they regarded not only as a violation of 
their sacred laws of hospitality but as a crime against a 
medicine-man with powerful if strange gods, were in 
terror lest the approaching Spaniards should hear of the 
monk's fate and avenge the double crime against their 
race and religion on the entire village. What the 
Spaniard could do on such occasions was only too well 
known to the Pueblo tribes. At nightfall the chiefs of 
the village placed the body, wrapped only in a sheet, 
on a litter, which four swift runners carried seventy 
miles south to Isleta. 

There under the dirt floor of the old church, whose 
walls have since been destroyed and replaced by the pres- 
ent structure, they placed the padre without preparing his 
body for burial or his soul for resurrection. If they had 
only said a prayer for him, they might have spared much 
trouble to their descendants. But they were in a hurry. 
They buried the corpse deep, six feet before the altar 
and a little to one side of it, and pressed down the dirt 
as it had been. The Spaniards came and went, and never 
learned of the murder. 

This prelude to the story came from Juan Pancho, one 
of the leading citizens of Isleta. The sand-storm which 
had turned the sky a dingy yellow gave signs of becom- 
ing more threatening, and a flat tire incurred as we 
stopped at his house for directions seemed to make it the 
part of wisdom to stop overnight in the little town. 
When we inquired about hotels, he offered us a room in 
his spotless adobe house, with the hospitality that is 



154 WESTWARD HOBOES 

instinctive in that part of the country. We found him 
an unusual man with a keen and beautifully intellectual 
face. In his youth, he told us, he was graduated from 
one or two colleges, and then completed his education by 
setting type for an encyclopedia, after which he returned 
to his native village and customs. He can speak four 
languages — Spanish, English, baseball slang, and the 
Isleta dialect which is his native tongue. When he came 
home after his sojourn with the white man, he discarded 
their styles in clothing, and adopted the fine blue broad- 
cloth trousers, closely fitting, the ruffled and pleated white 
linen shirt which the Indian had adopted from the Span- 
iard as the dress of civilized ceremony. On his feet he 
wore henna-stained moccasins, fastened with buttons of 
Navajo silver. He took pride in his long black hair, as 
do most Pueblo Indians, and, though he wore it in a 
chonga knot during business hours, in the relaxation of 
his comfortable adobe home he loosened it, and delighted 
in letting it flow free. 

His house Mrs. Juan kept neat as wax. They ate 
\J from flowered china, with knife and fork, though her 
bread was baked, delicious and crusty, in the round out- 
door ovens her grandmothers used as far back as B. C. 
or so. She' had not shared Juan's experience with the 
white man's world, except as it motored to the doors of 
her husband's store to purchase ginger ale or wrought- 
silver hatbands. But she had her delight, as did Juan, 
in showing the outside world she could put on or leave 
off their trappings at whim. She was a good wife, and 
how she loved Juan ! She hung on his every word, and 
ministered to his taste in cookery, and missed him when 
he went away to his farms — just like a white woman. 



ISLETA'S CHURCH 155 

Juan's ranch Is near the new church, which has stood 
above the foundations of the older church only a century 
and a half or less. It befits his rank as one of the leading 
citizens of the village that his property sliould have a 
prominent location on the bare and sand-swept little 
plaza. He loves his home and the life he has returned to. 

"I have tried them both — you see I know English? I 
can talk books with you, and slang with the drummers 
that come to the trading-store? I have ridden In your 
trains and your motor-cars, and eaten at white men's 
tables, and bathed in his white bathtubs. I have tried it 
all. I have read your religious books, and know about 
your good man, Jesus. Now I have come back to the 
ways of my people. Well ! You know me well enough 
to know I have my reasons. What Is there In your ways 
for me? I have tried them all, and now I come back 
to Great Isleta, where are none of those things you white 
men must have — and life Is full as before. I have what 
is inside me — the same in Isleta as anywhere else." 

He fastened his piercing eyes on us, a trick he has 
when he is much in earnest. Those eyes see a little more 
than some people's eyes. To him the aura that is hid- 
den to most of us Is a commonplace. He allows himself 
to be guided by psychic manifestations to an extent a 
white man might not understand. I heard him say of 
two men, strangers, who came to his ranch : "When they 
came in, I saw a light about the head of one. All was 
white and shining, and I knew I could trust him. But the 
other had no light. It was black around him. The first 
man can be my friend — but the other, never! I do not 
trust him." 

Moonshine? But the odd thing is that Juan's judg- 



156 WESTWARD HOBOES 

ment, so curiously formed, became fully justified by later 
events. The second man is not yet in jail, but there are 
people who know enough about him to put him there, if 
they cared to take the trouble. This trick of seeing the 
color of a man's soul is not unique with Juan. Many 
Pueblo Indians share it, as a matter of course, but it is a 
thing which they take for granted among themselves, and 
seldom mention. 

Mrs. Juan had cleared away the supper dishes, and 
sat by a corner of the fireside. She had removed from 
her legs voluminous wrappings of white doeskin, symbol 
of her high financial rating, and sat openly and com- 
placently admiring her silk-stockinged feet, coquettishly 
adorned with scarlet Turkish slippers, which she bal- 
anced on her toes. Pancho eyed the by-play with affec- 
tionate indulgence, and sent a long, slow wink in our 
direction at this harmless evidence of the eternal femi- 
nine. The talk had drifted to tales of wonder, to which 
we contributed our share as best we could, and now it 
was Juan's turn. He leaned forward earnestly, his black 
eyes somber and intense. 

"You know me for an honest man? You know people 
say that Juan Pancho does not lie? You know that when 
Juan says he will do a thing, he does it, if it ruins him?" 

We nodded. The reputation of Juan Pancho was a 
proverb in Great Isleta. 

"Good! Because now, I am going to tell you some- 
thing that will test your credulity. You will need to 
remember all you know of my honesty to believe what 
I tell you now." 

We drew forward, and listened while he narrated the 



ISLETA'S CHURCH 157 

story of the good monk of the time of Coronado, as I 
have told it in condensed form. 

"Well, then! You've been in that church where they 
buried the monk — six feet from the altar, and a little to 
one side. Most Indian churches have a dirt floor, but 
the church of Great Isleta has a plank floor, very heavy. 
Now I will tell you why. 

"The Spaniards came and went, without learning of 
the padre who slept with the knife wound in his back, 
under Isleta church. Five years went by, and one day, 
one of our old men who took care of the church went 
within, and saw a bulge in the earth, near the altar. It 
was of the size of a man's body. The bulge stayed there, 
right over the spot where they had buried the padre, and 
day after day it grew more noticeable. A year went by, 
and a crack appeared, the length of a man's body. Two 
years, three years — and the crack had widened and 
gaped. It was no use to fill it, to stamp down the dirt 
— that crack would remain open. Then, twelve years 
maybe from the death of the padre, the Isletans come 
into the church one morning, and there on the floor, face 
up, lies the padre. There is no sign of a crack in the 
earth — he lies on solid ground, looking as if he had died 
yesterday. They feel his flesh — it is soft, and gives to 
the touch of the finger, like the flesh of one whose breath 
has just flown. They turn him over — the knife wound 
is fresh, with red blood clotting it. Twelve years he 
has been dead! 

"Well, they called in the elders, and talked it over, 
and they bury him, and give him another chance to rest 
in peace. But he does not stay buried. A few years more 
and the crack shows again, and at the end of twelve 



158 WESTWARD HOBOES 

years, as before, there he lies on the ground, his body as 
free from the corruption of natural decay as ever. They 
bury him again, and after twelve years he is up. All 
around him lie the bones of Isletans who have died after 
him. The soil he lies in is the same soil which has turned 
their flesh to dust and their bones to powder. 

"So it goes on, until my own time. I have seen him, 
twice. There are old men in our village who have seen 
him half a dozen times, and have helped to bury him. 
They don't tell of it — it is a thing to keep to oneself — but 
they know of it. The whole village knows of it, but they 
don't talk. But the last time he came up we talked it 
over, and we decided we had enough. This time, if 
possible, we would make him stay down. 

"I saw him — in 19 lo or '11 it was — and so did many 
others. The priest of Isleta saw him. We sent for the 
governor, and he came and saw. And the archbishop of 
Santd Fe came, and with him a cardinal who was visiting 
from Rome itself; they all came. What is more, they 
drew up a paper, and made two copies, testifying to what 
they had seen, and signed it. Then they took one copy 
and placed it with the long-dead padre in a heavy oak 
coffin, and nailed it down. And the other copy the visit- 
ing cardinal took back to Rome to give to the pope. My 
signature was on it. Then we buried the coffin, deep, 
and packed the earth hard about it and stamped it down. 
Then we took planks, two-inch planks, and laid a floor 
over the entire church, and nailed it down with huge 
nails. We were resolved that if he came up, he would 
at least have to work his passage," 

"I suppose you've heard the last of him, then?" 

Juan leaned forward. His eyes sparkled. 



ISLETA'S CHURCH 159 



"We hope so. We hope so. But " 

He stood up and faced us. 

"You are good enough to say you believe the word of 
Juan Pancho. But I will not test your credulity too far. 
You shall judge for yourselves." 

Juan took, a lantern from a nail, and lighted it. 

"Come and see for yourselves!" 

We followed him across the deserted plaza, whose 
squat houses showed dimly gray under a windy, blue- 
black sky. He unlocked the heavy door with a great 
key, and entered the church. Feeling our way in the 
dark, bare interior, we advanced to within six feet of the 
altar, and he placed the lantern on the floor, where it 
shed a circle of yellow light among the black shadows. 
We knelt, and touched the nails. The heads were free 
of the floor. On them were no tool-marks. No ham- 
mer had loosened them. We bent down further, and 
laying our heads aslant the planks, sighted. In the lan- 
tern light, we discerned a slight but unmistakable warp 
in the timbers, the length and width of a man's body. 

In silence we returned to Juan's warm, lighted living- 
room, where Mrs. Juan still sat by the fire admiring her 
red slippers. If it is humanly possible, I intend to be 
in Great Isleta about the year 1923. 



CHAPTER XIII 

SANTE FE AND THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 

NOWHERE else did we find spring as lovely as at 
Santa Fe. Here, a mile and a half above sea 
level, was a crystal freshness of atmosphere, through 
which filtered a quintessence of the sounds and scents 
and colors that make a joyous season of spring even in 
downtown New York. 

A bit of a surprise it was to find, dozing in the sun like 
a New England village, a town important enough to 
have given its name to a railroad; to mark the end of 
one trail, and be a station on another; to have been the 
capital of an ancient Empire of the New World; and 
now to be the capital of a state. Yet the world passes 
it by, leaving it on a railroad spur high and dry from 
transcontinental traffic. So much the worse, then, for the 
world; so much the. better for Santa Fe. The town does 
not owe its personality to its railroad stations and Cham- 
bers of Commerce. The peaks guarding its high isola- 
tion have looked down upon many changes in its history. 
Yet it stays outwardly nearly unaltered; valuing ma- 
terial importance so little that it hides its Capitol down 
a grassy side street, while its Plaza still is dominated by 
the sturdy old Governor's Palace, where Onate raised 
the Spanish flag in the early seventeenth century, and 
Kearny replaced it with the American flag in 1846. 

The heart of Santa Fe is its Plaza. To its shady 

160 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE i6i 

trees, traders tied their horses when they had reached the 
end of the perilous Santa Fe Trail, glad enough to gain 
its shelter after being beset by the primitive dangers of 
hunger, thirst, wild beasts, Indians and robbers. The 
same Plaza where drowsy Mexicans now rest upon park 
benches, where processions of burros pass loaded with 
firewood, where shining automobiles flash by, has wit- 
nessed siege and countersiege, scenes of violence and 
heroism and romance. Richly laden caravans once came 
galloping into the town, sometimes closely beset by ban- 
dits or hostile Apaches, and weary adventurers from 
the land of Daniel Boone or Washington dismounted, 
and looked bewildered about them at this gay and alien 
civilization. Here the Pueblo Indians, in their final 
revolt, besieged the white settlers, and committed the 
only violences in their long career of patience, and here 
the conquering De Vargas finally overcame them, and 
surrounded by Franciscan monks, offered mass for his 
victory. Dominating the Plaza is the three century old 
Governor's Palace, whose walls conceal prehistoric In- 
dian foundations. It is a one-story building running 
half the length of the square, built in a day when hos- 
pitality demanded royal scope. Half inn, half fort, its 
six-foot thick walls stood for strength as well as cool- 
ness, and its mighty doors frequently knew the marks 
of assault. In modern times, until the beginning of this 
century it served as residence of the governor of the 
Territory. In a back room, Lew Wallace is said to have 
written chapters of Ben Hur. 

No question but that the Palace might be made more 
Interesting as a Museum, less a storehouse of half for- 
gotten oddments. It might tell less spasmodically and 



1 62 WESTWARD HOBOES 

with greater dignity the story of its successive occupa- 
tions, from the Royal Governor of Spain to the present 
time. It creates the Impression now of having been 
forgotten, except as, at intervals, a legacy of antiquities 
was deposited wholesale, without selection. The ex- 
hibits should be pruned, gaps filled, and arranged with 
better proportion and consecutiveness. 

It might well, indeed, take a leaf from the book of 
the new Museum, built on the same side of the Plaza. 
Its exterior skilfully assembles various parts of nearby 
buildings of Pueblo architecture. Its corners copy the 
towers of Laguna, Taos and Acoma. The warm stucco 
walls are studded with pinon vegas, and the doorways, 
windows and balconies are of cedar, deep-set in the thick 
walls. An infant art-gallery, fed from the local Santa 
Fe and Taos schools, sometimes according to Holt and 
sometimes on Cubist pickles and doughnuts, does the 
double service of giving the artist permanent exhibition- 
rooms, and illustrating local color for the tourist. 

I mean no disparagement here against the Santa Fe 
school, which numbers several names of national reputa- 
tion. The country cries to be painted in vividest colors; 
Nature here is in vermilion mood, and man tops her 
gayety with slouching insouciance, sky-blue shirts, and 
head-bands giving the needful splash of scarlet. Add 
skies as blue as a spring sun can stipple them, dash across 
them a blur of pink apricot bloom, bank them against 
cliffs of red-orange, pure gold where the light strikes it, 
and grape purple in the shadows, tone with the warm 
gray of a pueblo clustered about a sky-blue stream, and 
fringed yellow-green cottonwoods bordering it, — and 
what artist can paint with sobriety? That a few manage 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 163 

it is to their credit, nor can one wonder that this riot of 
color goes to the heads of others till their canvasses look 
like an explosion in a vegetable garden. 

Tucked away in another street off the Plaza stands 
the old Cathedral, begun in 16 12. As cathedrals go it 
Is an unimpressive example of the worst period of church 
architecture : to the usual trappings of its interior is 
added the barbaric crudity of the Mexican in church art; 
an art like the French Canadian's, naive and literal. It 
must show the bleeding heart much ensanguined, the 
wounds of Christ fresh with gore, and its doll-faced 
saints covered with lace and blue satin, like fashion plates 
of Godey's Ladies. What interests me in this as in 
other churches of the Southwest is the colossal ironic 
joke on the Pilgrim Fathers and Puritans, whose con- 
temporary efforts on the stern rock-bound eastern coast 
were just about offset by the equally earnest efforts of 
the Spanish padres on the cactus-ridden desert of the 
west. However, what each bequeathed of value has 
remained to build a vaster, freer, and perhaps better 
community than either unwitting opponent previsioned. 

Quite Colonial, and oddly reminiscent of New Eng- 
land is the Governor's mansion of today, across from 
the present Capitol, which like every Capitol in the 
United States rears a helmet shaped dome. In the 
houses of this New Mexican government occurs a phe- 
nomenon unknown to any other state : two languages are 
officially spoken, Mexican and English, with an inter- 
preter to make each side intelligible to the other. I do 
not know whether this bilingual Assembly and Senate 
produces twice as much verbiage as the usual legislature 



1 64 WESTWARD HOBOES 

or whether the two tongues serve as a deterrent to 
oratory. 

New Mexico, it must be remembered, is more Indian 
and Mexican than American by a proportion of three to 
one, and includes a sprinkling of negro and Chinese. 
The Indian lends a touch of the primitive; the Mexican 
brings Spain into the picture. In doorways painted sky 
blue or lavender, swarthy women gossip, in mantilla and 
fringed black shawl. Against a shady wall, in sash and 
sombrero, all but too lazy to light the inevitable ciga- 
rette, slouches a Mexican who should be working. On 
Sundays and fete days, the roads about Sante Fe are 
splashed with the vivid colors of the girls' frocks, — 
pinks, purples and scarlet accenting the inevitable black 
of the women's dress, — as they make their way under 
fringy cottonwoods to some country alberge. The sound 
of a jerky accordion usually follows them up the canyon 
roads. 

Mostly the Mexicans are gregarious, keeping to their 
own quarters in Santa Fe, and their own villages further 
out in the country, often near an Indian pueblo of the 
same name, as at Taos and at Tesuque, famed for its 
grotesque Indian godlets. All about Santa Fe these 
little adobe towns, Chimayo, Teuchas, Cuamunque, Po- 
joaque, Espanola, Alcalde and Pecos, lie in some fertile 
river valley, surrounded by their fruit trees and alfalfa 
fields. The Mexicans, though indolent, understand truck 
farming thoroughly. Like their occupations, their rec- 
reations are primitive. They have their own dances, 
where the men sit on one side of the room and the girls, 
giggling and shoving, at the other, until some bold swain 
sets the ball rolling. Then it does not cease to roll, fast 



^ 




AGAINST A SHADY WALL, ALL hU 1 lOO LA/V TO LIGHT THE INEMTABLE 
CIGARETTE, SLOUCHES, WHEREVER ONE TURNS, A MEXICAN. 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 165 

and furious, till morning, often ending in some tragic 
fray, where a knife flashes. 

They have their own schools and churches; — and 
almost always, at the end of the town, a little window- 
less house which looks like a church. The Americano is 
unwise who attempts to enter, or even ask questions 
concerning this building. It is the morado, or brother- 
hood house, of a secret sect called the Penitentes, who 
have been described briefly in certain books on this 
locality, but are almost unknown to the outside world. 
The sect is entirely Mexican, not Indian, as has fre- 
quently been misstated. Only a very few Indians have 
ever become Penitentes, and most of the race hold the 
idea in abhorrence. Survival of a cult which flourished 
in Spain four centuries ago, the practice was brought to 
Old Mexico, of which New Mexico was then a part, by 
some Franciscans who followed the conquistadores. In 
Lisbon, in 1801, a procession of flagellants went through 
the streets. This seems to have been the latest outbreak 
in Europe, yet in our own United States it stubbornly 
persists today, despite the utmost the Catholic church 
can do to discourage this horrible self-torture. 

We had the very good fortune to enter Santa Fe 
during Holy Week. All along our route, through the 
little Mexican towns bordering the Rio Grande, church 
bells were ringing, and Mexicans in gala array riding to 
special services on pintos, burros, or in carts laden with 
entire families of eight or ten. When we reached our 
hotel, three miles out, for adequate hotels for some 
strange reason do not exist in Santa Fe, we were invited 
to go "Penitente Hunting." The sport is not without 
its dangers. Strangers who venture too near the mysteri- 



1 66 WESTWARD HOBOES 

ous processions have been shot, and only the most fool- 
hardy would seek to go near the morado. 

We learned that while the members are quiescent dur- 
ing the year, committing whatever laxities of conduct seem 
good to them. Holy Week heaps on them, voluntarily, the 
ashes of bitter atonement. On Monday, they gather in 
their morado, and enter on a week of fasting, ritual, 
and self-inflicted torture. To a few selected by the high 
priests of the order is given the honor, from their point 
of view, of taking upon themselves the sins of all. They 
endure incredible torments; some lie on beds of cactus 
the entire week, others wear the deadly cholla bound on 
their backs or inserted under the flesh. Every Penitente 
bears on his back the mark of the Cross, slit into his 
skin with deep double gashes at his initiation into the 
sect. These wounds are re-opened each year. Weak 
from flogging, with blood raining from their backs till 
old wounds mingle with the new, eating only food brought 
to the morado at nightfall by their women, these vicarious 
sufferers come forth on Good Friday to the culmination 
of their agony. 

Santa Fe was agog with rumors. At one town we 
heard the penitentes would not leave their morado, re- 
senting the growing publicity their rites attracted. An- 
other, further from civilization, was to show a cruci- 
fixion, with ghastly fidelity even to the piercing of hands 
and feet, — a fate for which the honored victim begged. 
Loomis has related this circumstance as a fact, and 
rumor of the year previous to our arrival gave it con- 
firmation. 

Early Good Friday morning, our party drove in and 
out the valleys, fording to our hubs streams that yesterday 







y'm^ 














**^*'*Sif*"'^^^''''"'"ri' 


a^^^::^:.. 



A MEXICAN MORADO, NEW MF.XK ii. 
The Americano is unwise who attempts to enter or even ask questions concerning this building 




THE MUSEUM OF SANTA FE. 
Its comers copy the towers of Laguna, Taos, and Acoma. 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 167 

were mere trickles, and tomorrow, augmented by melting 
mountain snows, would be raging torrents. New Mexico 
has few working bridges. One fords a stream, if it 
seems sufficiently shallow, or waits a day or week at 
the nearest hotel for it to subside. Rivers were fast 
leaving their bounds this morning, but we managed to 
cross in time to arrive at Alcalde before ceremonies had 
begun. 

Built like most adobe pueblos, Indian and Mexican, 
about a straggling square, this little village furnished a 
good vantage for Americans to see and to be observed, 
— watched with quiet hostility by idling natives. Cross- 
currents of ill feeling we sensed intangibly; not only did 
the village as a whole bristle toward us, but it contained 
two sects of flagellants, and two morados, whose families 
were fiercely partisan; and in addition these were op- 
posed by the native element of strict Catholics who, 
obeying the mandates of the Church, frowned on the 
fanatic religionists. We were warned not to take pic- 
tures nor show our cameras, nor to follow the procession 
too closely. Our presence was barely tolerated, and our 
innocent attempts to become an inconspicuous part of 
the landscape met with scowls and uncomplimentary re- 
marks. Perhaps they were justified; the desire to 
guard one's religious rites from curious eyes is a high 
instinct, which, no matter how effacingly we "hunted peni- 
tentes," we were violating. 

The saints in the whitewashed church had been dressed 
for the occasion in new ribbons and laces. On a low 
wheeled platform stood a crudely painted figure of 
Christ, his eyes bandaged with the pathetic purpose of 
saving him from the sight of the agony to come to his 



i68 WESTWARD HOBOES 

followers. With him were other figures; one I think 
was Judas, with his bag of silver and mean grimace. 
Soon from the morado came a short procession of men 
and boys, weak-kneed and trembling, clad only in cotton 
drawers and shirts which speedily became ensanguined 
from wounds made by hidden thorns. They walked 
with a peculiar swaying motion, as if their knees were 
broken. Three of them, no more than boys, bore great 
crosses of foot-square timber, about twenty feet long. 
The heavy ends dragged on the ground; the cross beams 
rested on bent backs, on which, the whisper went, were 
bound the spiky cactus whose every curved needle press- 
ing on the flesh spells torture. Blood ran down their 
shaky legs, joining blood already crusted. Their faces 
were hooded. 

A band of flagellants followed who as yet played a less 
active part. At wide intervals over the scorching desert 
were planted the fourteen stations of the cross, to which 
the three principals, barefooted, dragged their burdens. 
At each they rested while the drama of that station was 
enacted as crudely and literally as an early mystery play. 
A middle-aged penitente in store clothes, fiercely in 
earnest, read appropriate passages from the Mexican 
Bible, stumbling over the pronunciation. Then the pro- 
cession chanted responses, and the brief respite, if re- 
spite it was for the cross-bearers, came to an end. At 
the proper station, three little black-robed Marys broke 
from the crowd, and played their tragic part. 

We watched in suspense the slow progress, wondering 
if the martyrs would reach their goal alive. As they 
neared the fourteenth station, one of the "two thieves" 
tottered, and had to be supported, half-fainting, the rest 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 169 

of the way. The other two barely managed to finish. 
Our dread was heightened lest the Mystery be carried 
to its bitter close. 

No printed word could have aroused among its ignor- 
ant spectators the tense devoutness inspired by this 
medieval drama. Religion to many of us has become a 
denatured philosophy, a long step from this savage bru- 
tality. Yet have we any substitute which will so kindle 
our imagination and idealism that it could school the body 
to endure gladly even the supreme agony? 

During the heat of the day, all was silence within the 
morado to which the actors had retreated. The sob- 
bing Mexican women who followed the procession van- 
ished with their black veils into their houses, some per- 
haps to await news of the death or collapse of their men, 
which not infrequently attends the Holy Week celebrants. 
Toward dark, over the country side, automobile phares 
began to converge toward the silent morado. The world 
outside had taken up "penitente hunting" as a cold- 
blooded sport. They came openly baiting the penitentes, 
who angered, refused to appear. Eight, nine, ten, eleven ! 
We left our darkened car, and hid ourselves in the sand 
dunes near the graveyard, in the dark shadow of a clump 
of pifions. 

We waited with cramped legs, while the blue sky be- 
came black, and mysterious shapes loomed up in an 
unspeakably vast and lonely country. The Flagellants 
were still sulking. At last, a light across the river 
flickered, swung, and started down a distant trail, whose 
route we traced by an occasional lantern glimmer through 
masses of trees. A sweet, weird wail floated over to us 
on a gust of wind. It was the pito, wild and high-pitched 



lyo WESTWARD HOBOES 

flute, making a most dismal, shivery music. The pro- 
cession twisted and turned toward the river. We 
crouched uncomfortably by our sand dunes, not daring to 
make a sound for fear it might be carried on the clear 
air. Suddenly came a chant, broken, taken up and 
dropped by voices too weak to modulate. It sounded 
unevenly, as spurts of energy forced it from tired throats; 
loud, then a whisper. The chant continued, with an 
ominous new sound added; a thud, thud, thud, regular 
and pitiless, the fall of thongs upon flesh. No outcry 
came; only the chant and the wail of the pito rose louder. 

It was a neighboring sect on the way to pay a visit to 
our morado. Frequently the light was arrested, and the 
singing stopped. We knew then they were paying their 
devotions at one of the heaps of stone, rude wayside 
memorials seen everywhere in this locality, erected by 
the Mexicans to their dead, some of whom lie in battle- 
fields of France. Then the chant continued, the thud, 
painful enough only to hear, and the shufile of feet, in a 
sort of weary lockstep. Across the river another light 
flickered and started. Soon, from our hiding-place high 
over the valley, we could see half a dozen processions, 
wending up and down through the hills. 

A movement from the direction of our morado, and 
the pito sounded close at hand, accompanied by the 
uneven creak of a rude cart, filling us with a delightful, 
terrifying suspense. So close that we could have touched 
them, passed chanting men, swinging lights. We heard 
the break of leaden whips on their bare backs, but no 
groans. It was the procession of the death wagon, on 
which a skeleton was strapped, a macabre memento mori 
borrowed from the Middle Ages. The gleaming lantern 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 171 

illumined its ribs as it tottered on its seat in grisly 
semblance of life. 

Suddenly a motor drove up aggressively, and halted 
straight across the path of the death wagon. The pito 
and chanting stopped. A crowd quickly gathered, and 
angry voices made staccato demands. The car remained 
insolently unmoved, blocking the penitentes' most private 
ceremony. The mob was angry beyond bounds at what 
to the most unsympathetic observer was gross rudeness, 
but to them was outrageous sacrilege. Pistols were 
drawn. The increasing numbers of penitentes surround- 
ing the car buzzed like swarming hornets whose nest has 
been smashed, and who hunt the marauder with vicious 
intent. Then came a heavy voice from the car, a moment 
of confusion, and the crowd melted away, muttering but 
evidently cowed, while the car moved arrogantly for- 
ward. Puzzled, we asked for explanations. 

"That fellow in the car owns the big store where all 
those greasers trade. They buy on credit, run in debt, 
and he takes a mortgage on their ranches or herds of 
sheep. Some of them owe him two or three thousand. 
They were all ready to make trouble when they recog- 
nized him. He told them he was going to see the show, 
and if they didn't like it they could pay what they owed 
him tomorrow. So they slunk off. He is a German." 

Echt deutsch! 

Barbarous as may be this custom of flagellating, 
there is devout belief behind it. To the ignorant Mexi- 
can stimulated by these annual reminders, it is as if, as 
is literally true, the torture and anguish had occurred to 
a neighbor in his home town. The faces of the men and 
women, even of little children witnessing the penitente 



172 WESTWARD HOBOES 

rites, showed the reality to them of what to most of us 
is remote as the legend of Hercules. Faith so beautiful 
and unusual must command respect no matter what 
arouses it. Yet in black contrast to it is the political 
and moral corruption said to accompany this dangerous 
doctrine of expiation. Being especially saintly because 
of their endurance test, the penitentes during the rest 
of the year commit murder, adultery, theft and arson 
with cheerful abandon. Nobody dares oppose them or 
revenge their excesses, either from pious veneration, 
fear, or a knowledge of the uselessness of such a pro- 
cedure. For the Penitentes are whispered to be potent 
politically. Membership in the sect is kept secret. Many 
prominent judges and state politicians are said to be 
Penitentes. If a fellow member is brought to justice, he 
gets off lightly or goes scot-free, and strange deaths are 
predicted for enemies, private or public, of the sect. I 
was even warned not to write of them, for fear their 
power should extend beyond the state's borders. Doubt- 
less much of this local fear is exaggerated. 

But I predict that what church and legislature have 
failed to do, the ubiquitous tourist will accomplish. In 
the more remote hill towns, services still reproduce the 
incarnadined Passion with all its horrors. Nearer to 
Santa Fe, the flagellants withdraw closer and closer into 
their morados. Without an audience to sympathize, pain 
and torture become less tolerable. No man, however 
sincere he believes himself, turns Stylites unless his pillar 
stands in the market place. 

Ten miles from this strange Good Friday we passed 
an equally strange Easter in the Indian pueblo of San 
Ildefonso, whose many generations of Catholicism do 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 173 

not prevent invoking the gods who have given service 
even longer than the Christian's deities. They shake 
well and mix them, somewhat after the fashion of my 
colored laundress who confessed she always wore a hoo- 
doo charm : — "Of course I'se a good Christian, too, but 
the Bible says, don't it, the Law'd he'ps them as he'ps 
they-selves?" 

Somewhat in this spirit, Easter Sunday was chosen for 
the Rain Dance which was to end a long drought. For 
miles we passed buckboards carrying large Indian fami- 
lies endimanchees with rainbow hues; Indian bucks on 
little neat-footed ponies, their square-chopped raven hair 
banded with scarlet or purple, wearing short gay velvet 
shirts, buttoned with silver shells bartered from the 
Navajos, white cotton trousers, or the more modern blue 
overalls, henna-colored moccasins, silver buttoned on 
their tiny feet. Their necks and waists were loaded with 
wampum and turquoise-studded silver, their faces rouged. 

"Why do you paint your face?' we asked a visiting 
Santa Domingo dandy. 

"Oh, to be na-ice," he replied to our impertinence. 
"Why don't you paint yours?" 

Volumes have been written of the Pueblo Indians' folk- 
lore and religion, much of it probably wrong, for the 
Indian has a habit of telling what he thinks you want 
to be told, and concealing exactly what he wishes to con- 
ceal. His religion is too sacred and intimate to be 
revealed to the first inquirer. While he has a sense of 
humor, which some people persist in denying, he is, like 
most practical jokers, extremely sensitive to ridicule, 
especially when directed against himself. Always a 
mystic, he finds his way easily where the Anglo-Saxon 



174 WESTWARD HOBOES 

gropes. The common lore of Strange Things, which 
he shares with the gypsy, the Hindu, and the Jew, races 
to whom he bears a certain physical resemblance, was 
his centuries before he adopted clothes. In ordinary 
learning he remains a child, albeit a shrewd child, yet his 
eyes are open in realms of the unknown. He hears the 
rush of mighty winds through the heavens, and is ac- 
quainted with the voice of the thunder. He can com- 
mune with unseen forces without the trumpery aid of 
ouija or the creaky mechanism of science. Though he 
can barely add and hardly knows his multiplication tables, 
I venture to guess that if the fourth dimension be ever 
demonstrated, the Indian will be found to have had a 
working knowledge of it, and will accept it as a com- 
monplace to his tribe and his medicine men. 

In the Casa Grande ruins is a tiny hole through which 
the sun shines the first day it crosses the vernal equinox. 
Like the lens of a telescope, this focusses into other tiny 
holes in other parts of the building. Why it is there 
nobody knows, but it indicates a knowledge of astronomy 
which places the prehistoric Pima on equal footing with 
modern scientists. Before the Zuni Indians knew a white 
race existed, according to Gushing, Powell and the musi- 
cian Carlos Troyer, they had evolved the theory of 
prismatic rays coming from the sun, and had established 
a fixed relation between color and sound tones, anticipat- 
ing by some centuries Mr. Henderson and others. Their 
medicine men took shells, found in their magic Corn 
Mountain, a giant mesa overshadowing the village, 
polished them to tissue thinness, and then painted each 
shell a pure color, corresponding to the colors of the 
prism. One by one they placed these shells over the ear, 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 175 

nearest the sun. The corresponding color ray from 
the sun would strike a musical note so powerful that 
care had to be taken to prevent the ear drum being 
broken. These absolute color-tones the medicine men 
noted, and used exclusively In sacred ceremonies, but did 
not permit their use in secular music. Are the red men 
more subtly attuned to rhythms of the universe than the 
superior white race? Has the dirty, half-naked medicine- 
man somehow found the parent stem of the banyan-tree 
of life, while we are still digging around its off-shoots? 
But this is a long digression from the sunlit plaza, 
splashed with the scarlet Pendleton blankets and sky- 
blue jerkins of visiting chiefs, and the pink sateen 
Mother-Hubbard of the squaw next me, whose too solid 
flesh was anchored with pounds and pounds of silver and 
turquoise, — enough to pawn at the trader's for a thou- 
sand or two of baJiana money. To our questions of the 
symbolism of the dance they made child-like answers : it 
is to "make rain," — mucha agua (Spanish is the lingua 
franca of the Pueblo Indian). Babies in every state of 
dress from a string of wampum up, crowded shyly for 
our fast melting chocolates; aged crones, half-blind from 
the too prevalent trachoma, hospitably invited us into 
their neat white-washed living rooms, or offered us chairs 
at their doorways. Doors were wide open; the town 
kept open house. It gave us an opportunity to see their 
houses without prying. Our first reaction was surprise 
at their universal ship-shapeness. We saw dirt floors, 
on which two or three pallets were folded in neat rows, 
or in the grander houses, a white enamel bed with one 
sheet only, and a lace counterpane ; a crucifix and two 
or three portraits of saints on the walls, next a gayly 



176 WESTWARD HOBOES 

flowered cover of some seed catalogue ; a rafter hung with 
rugs, clothing, and strings of wampum and silver; slings 
in which the beds are suspended at night, and a blackened 
stone fireplace in the corner. And nearly always, a 
blooming plant in a tin can on the wide windowsill, and 
a lilac bush just outside. 

Houses are strategically situated in a Pueblo village 
to permit of every one knowing everything which goes on. 
If a dog barks, or a stranger takes a snap-shot without 
toll, twenty women are at their doors shouting maledic- 
tion. There can be no secrets, — gossip screamed cat-a- 
corners across a plaza with a face at every door and 
window and the roofs thronged loses much of its 
piquancy. 

But before the dance a certain decorum prevailed. 
This Rain dance, we were told, was especially sacred. 
Then, whooping and performing monkey antics, two 
strange figures, mostly naked except for some horizontal 
stripes painted with grease paint on their legs and bodies, 
leaped down the outside stairway of the priesthouse. 
Horns adorned their heads, and a tail apiece eked out 
their scanty costume. They turned somersaults, seized 
women by the waist and waltzed with them, hit each 
other playfully over the head with sticks, rushed into 
houses, and came out with pails of food, whereat they 
squatted in the plaza, and ate with simulated gusto. 
They were the koshari, or delight-makers, — the heredi- 
tary clowns who open the dance ceremonies. Like the 
ancient Lords of Misrule, they are king for the day, and 
all must obey their fantastic whims. They are licensed 
plunderers, privileged to rush into any house, which must 
be left open, and run off with anything which takes their 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 177 

fancy. Possibly because the koshari availed themselves 
too enthusiastically of this part of their priestly office, 
it is now the custom to set out food for them, to which 
they are supposed to confine themselves. 

One koshari was tottering and blind, steering himself 
with a cane, and the brusque aid of his companion, a fat 
young rascal who would have been funny in any lan- 
guage. He, poor soul, no longer amusing, contented 
himself with rushing about on his withered legs, and 
uttering feeble yelps in concert with his colleague. The 
dancers followed, all young men, — some in their teens, 
— and began a solemn march around the village preced- 
ing the dance. Necklaces of evergreen wreaths com- 
prised their costume from the waist up, two eagle 
feathers topped their hair, short white hand-woven skirts 
reached to the knee, with an occasional fox skin hang- 
ing behind, and at the side red, white and green tassels 
of wool. The limbs and bodies were painted; at the 
ankles tortoise shells rattled, and gourds in their hands 
shook with silvery precision. In moccasins edged with 
skunk fur, they stamped in light, unvarying rhythm, first 
on one foot, then the other, wheeling in sudden gusts, not 
together, but in a long rhythmic swell so accurately 
timed to undulate down the line that each foot was lifted 
a fraction higher than the one in front. They sang 
quietly, with the same shuddering little accent their 
gourds and feet maintained, at intervals stressing a note 
sharply, in absolute accord. Two women, young and 
comely, in the heavy black squaw dress and white doe- 
skin leggins of the Pueblo woman, squatted midway 
before the line of lithe dancers, and beat, beat all through 
the day on their drums, while all through the day, lightly. 



178 WESTWARD HOBOES 

sharply, the moccaslned feet were planted and lifted, 
with a snap and re-bound as if legs and rippling bodies 
covered not sinews, but springs of finely tempered steel, 
timed to hair trigger exactness. Their lean faces wore 
an intent look, hardly heeding the antics of the koshari 
who gamboled around them, standing on their heads, 
tumbling, shouting, and pulling each other's tails like 
monkeys. About evergreen trees planted in the center, 
they pivoted to all four points of the compass. The 
dance varied little. The song, the tombes, the shivery 
gourds and shells, the syncopated beat of each tireless 
foot on the earth became a background to the color and 
picnic movement of the village, drowsy in the sunshine, 
steaming with the odors of people, dogs, jerked beef, 
cedar smoke and buckskin, whiffs of lilac, fresh willow, 
snowy sprays of wild pear, and a wet breeze from the 
Rio Grande. 

Because rain in that parched country is literally life, 
the Indians hold this rain dance too sacred to admit as 
participants any women save the two who beat the drums. 
"Tomorrow," said the fat young koshari, "nice dance. 
We dance with the girls then." 

I dare not claim any authority for the interpretation 
of the costumes of the Rain Dance. Several natives of 
the pueblo, including quiet-eyed Juan, the governor, gave 
us various versions which did not tally in every particu- 
lar. We had learned that an Indian's meaning of a lie, 
which he is fairly scrupulous in avoiding, does not include 
the answers to questions touching his cherished customs 
and the private code of his race. The evergreen, all 
agreed, stood for fertility or verdure; the eagle feathers, 
with their white and black tips, for the black and white 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 179 

of slashing rain and lowering clouds; the yellow fox- 
skins represented the yellow of ripe corn; the red and 
green tassels at the waist the flowers and grass of spring; 
the white tassels, snow or hail. The symbolism of the 
thunder clouds was repeated in the black and white of 
the skunk fur moccasins; the gourds echoed the swish 
of rain, and the drum-beats the rumble of the thunder; 
the tortoise shell rattles at the ankle meant either rain 
and wind, or were a symbol, like the shell necklaces most 
of them wore, of the ocean, which all desert tribes espe- 
cially revere, as the Father of all Waters. 

During the dance the fat and impudent koshari 
honored me with a command, — "You take me and my 
chum for a ride?" Fat and very naked, covered with 
melting grease paint, and ferocious in horns and tail, he 
was not the sort of companion I would have chosen for a 
motor drive, but a refusal might have prompted him to 
expel us from the village. On a fete day, the lightest 
word of a koshari is law. He clambered in, and moved 
over to make room for his chum, a loathsome and mangy 
old fellow, with rheumy, sightless eyes, whose proximity 
filled me with disgust. Tottering with age and excite- 
ment, his first move was to clutch the steering wheel, and 
when I had disengaged his claws, he grasped the lever 
with an iron grip. Meanwhile, thirteen brown babies, 
some of whom had been bathed as recently as last year, 
climbed into the tonneau. We v/hirled around and 
around the plaza, the children shouting, dogs barking, 
the fat koshari bowing like visiting royalty to the cheer- 
ing spectators, uttering shrieks in my ear to take me off 
guard, kicking his heels in the air, or sliding to the 
floor as a too-daring visitor tried to snap his picture. 



i8o WESTWARD HOBOES 

while koshari senior occasionally seized the levers and 
threw us into reverse, nearly stripping the gears. 

A curious people ! Childishly admiring of the white 
man's automobiles, radium watches and canned foods, 
and gravely contemptuous of his civilized codes, morals 
and spiritual insight; unsanitary in daily life, yet with 
rituals of hospital cleanliness; believing in charms and 
"medicine," yet with a knowledge of herbs, and mental 
therapy beyond our own; introducing buffoonery into their 
religious services, yet with a reverence for religion un- 
comprehended by the white man; unable to persuade the 
government to give him citizen rights, — but easily able 
to persuade the Lord to send him rain! For, two days 
after the dance, rain came in abundance in sheets, tor- 
rents and cataracts, after a drought which had lasted 
months. The Hopi snake dance they say never fails to 
bring rain. Other rain dances about Santa Fe have the 
same result. Is it coincidence, — or has the Indian a 
weather sense beyond ours; — or does he look the Deity 
more squarely and unflinchingly in the eye when he makes 
his demands? Jacob wrestled with his angel. The 
Indian knows his prayers will bring rain. And however 
obtained, his percentage of correct answers seems higher 
than the white man's. 

A week later, when the town of San Felipe gave a 
"corn dance," we found another instance of the thor- 
oughness with which the Pueblo jumbles his religions. 
Through the old white plaza, dazzling with color, divid- 
ing its lively crowds impartially between the lemonade 
stand at one end, and the draped altar at the other, we 
made our way to the old church which looks through an 
avenue of blossoming Cottonwood on to a gentle blue and 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE i8i 

green landscape picked out by the meanderlngs of the 
Rio Grande. Meanwhile the dance in the Plaza had 
begun. Almost within sight of the stamping, chanting 
rows of Squash and Turtle clans, the men naked to the 
waist with long hair flowing, the women's black-clad 
bodies and bare arms swaying, the congregation slipped 
In to the cool interior of the church, and, dressed in the 
gorgeous clothes and jewels they wore to honor their 
native gods, listened respectfully to a visiting Bishop, 
and knelt in prayer with accustomed reverence. They 
saw no incongruity in it, and neither do I, so long as 
good Christians throw spilled salt over their left shoul- 
der, or wish on the moon. Yet it made a delightful 
contrast, — the little brown boys in their white robes in- 
toning with the nasality of altar boys the world over, 
plus the Indian's special brand of nasality; the quiet 
attention of the drifting congregation, and outside, the 
noise, color and sunshine; the bands of giddy bucks 
sprawling on painted ponies, the cool lovely valley be- 
yond, and at Its heart, the power which brought all these 
elements together, — sluggish old Rio Grande, taking its 
time on its everlasting journey to the Gulf. 

Within a short radius of Santa Fe, one can trace all 
the successive steps in the history of the Pueblo Indian. 
We go furthest back at Rito de los Frijoles, where a 
glance half way up a perpendicular cliff reveals black 
spots of pin-head size. An arduous climb up rough lad- 
ders and steps notched in crumbling yellow tufa shows 
these holes as large caverns hollowed by water under 
the shelving roof of the soft rock, and built up with a 
masonry which today would easily command ten dollars 
a day and a forty-eight hour week. "The Cloud City, 



1 82 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Acoma," on the Arizona road is built atop a high mesa, 
facing the still higher Enchanted Mesa, now peopled 
only by troubled ghosts. Doubtless the first Indians to 
advance from cave dwellings to mesas felt as emanci- 
pated as the first New Englander who left the old home- 
stead for a modern apartment-house. Further east the 
rock-bastioned villages of the Hopis still carry on the 
customs of their kin, if not their ancestors. At Taos and 
Laguna the timid Pueblos finally ventured down to the 
ground, but retained the style of the mesas and cliff 
dwellings, of terraced receding houses, several stories 
high. The final and most modern adaptation are the 
one-story, squat little adobe houses of the river pueblos, 
whose dwellers have shaken off entirely the ancestral 
fear, and raise corn and alfalfa, melons and apricots on 
the rich irrigated soil. 

The journey to Frijoles is worth risking a fall over 
precipices as one dashes over switchbacks of incom- 
parable dizziness on roadbeds of unsanctified roughness. 
From Buckman, if the bridge is not washed away by the 
floods, like most bridges about Santa Fe, the ascent 
starts to the neat little, green little Rito de los Frijoles, 
— Bean Valley is its unpoetical English. No motorist 
should undertake this trip with his own car unless he 
thinks quickly, knows his machine thoroughly, and is 
inoculated against "horizontal fever." The road climbs 
past orange hills up blue distances, through warmly 
scented forests of scrub pinon, with a vista of the river 
far below. At the top the car must be abandoned, for 
nothing wider than a mule can manage the descent into 
the canyon. 

A precipitous and dusty trail drops to a refreshing 




CAVE DWELLINGS IN THE PUMICE WALLS OF CANYON DE LOS FRIJOLES 

SANTA FE. 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 183 

little valley, long and narrow, grown with shady pines, 
and watered by a brook which was probably the raison 
d'etre for the city so many ages silent as the sphinx and 
dead as Pompeii. In a beautiful semi-circle, so sym- 
metrical and tiny seen from above that it looks like a 
fantastic design etched on the valley floor, lie the ruined 
walls of a city whose people were the first families of 
North America. It is hard to believe this peacefully 
remote valley ever echoed the noise of playing children, 
of gossiping women and barking dogs. The dark- 
skinned Jamshyd who ruled here left speechless stone 
walls to crumble under the tread of the wild ass, and 
whether drought, pestilence or murder drove him and 
his race forth, forsaking their habitations to the eternal 
echoes, nobody knows. He was timid, or he would not 
have plastered his houses like swallows' nests in the 
cliff, or huddled them together in this remote canyon, 
walled in against more aggressive tribes. He was agri- 
cultural, for traces of his gardens, dust these centuries, 
may be found. Shard heaps of pottery designed in the 
red and black pattern that dates them as from one to 
two thousand years old, and arrowheads of black obsid- 
ian prove he knew the same arts as the Southwestern 
Indian of today. Each tribal unit, then as now, had its 
kiva, or underground ceremonial chamber with the altar 
stone placed exactly as in every kiva in Utah, Colorado 
or Arizona. 

Parenthetically, the kiva may have retained its popu- 
larity through the sunshiny ages because it offered the 
men of the tribe a complete refuge from their women- 
folk. Once down the ladder, they need not pull it after 
them, for custom forbade and still forbids a squaw of 



1 84 WESTWARD HOBOES 

any modesty from acting as if the kiva were within a 
hundred miles of her. Once inside, the men folk are at 
liberty to whittle their prayer sticks, gossip, swap stories, 
and follow whatever rituals men indulge in when alone. 
It is as bad form for a pueblo woman to invade the kiva 
as for us to enter a men's club, — with the difference that 
no kiva had a ladies' night. Besides furnishing shelter 
to the henpecked Benedicts, the kiva became a sort of 
Y. M. C. A. for the young bucks. In ancient times the 
bachelors of the tribe slept together in the kiva, their food 
being left outside the entrance. This very wise pro- 
vision greatly protected the morals of the young people, 
forced to live in very close juxtaposition. 

On the ridge opposite the caves of Frijoles lies an 
unexplored region believed to be the summer home of 
the race who lived here so secretly and vanished so mys- 
teriously. In a few years the excavator may discover 
among the shard heaps at the top of this canyon the 
reason for the exodus, but at present more is known 
about lost Atlantis than these ruins in our "rawest" and 
newest corner of the States. 

One need not thrill to the prehistoric, however, to 
enjoy Santa Fe, especially when the apricots blur the 
flaming green valley with a rosy mist. All trails from 
the sleepy little town lead to the perpetual snows of the 
hills through scented forests of pine, past roaring 
streams. A good horse will clamber up the bed of a 
waterfall, leap fallen logs, pick his way, when the forest 
becomes too tangled, over the slippery boulders of the 
river, canter over ground too rough for a high-school 
horse to walk upon, and bring his rider out to the top of 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 185 

some high ridge, where crests of blue notch against crests 
of paler and paler blue, without end. 

Near enough to Santa Fe to be reached in a day by 
motor and somewhat longer by pack-train, lies the en- 
chanting valley locally called "The Pecos." One mounts 
the pinon-scented red trail, studded with spring flowers, 
to the heights above, where to breathe the air of dew 
and fire is to acquire the zip of a two year old colt and 
the serenity of a seraph. In this least known corner of 
our country, the Pecos is the least traveled district, 
known only to a few ranchmen, and old guides with tall, 
"straight" stories, and short, twisted legs, — mighty 
hunters who have wrestled barehanded with bears, and 
stabbed mountain lions with their penknives. Sports- 
men are only beginning to know what the streams of 
the Pecos produce in trout, and its wilderness in big 
game. Given a good horse, a good guide, good "grub" 
and a comfortable bedding roll, a month free from 
entangling alliances with business, and the Pecos pro- 
vides sound sleep, mighty appetites, and air two miles 
high, so different from the heavy vapor breathed by the 
city-dweller that it deserves a name of its own. 

Nobody can stay long in Santa Fe, without becoming 
aware of the Rio Grande's influence on the dwellers in 
its valley. It furnishes not only their livelihood, but little 
daily happenings, "So and So's car got stuck crossing at 
Espanola, and had to stay in the river two days," — "The 
river rose and tore down the bridge at Buckman, and 
they say there will be two more bridges down by night." 
— "You can't get out at Pojoaque, this week." But to 
see the river in its magnificence, one should drive over 



1 86 WESTWARD HOBOES 

the canyon of the Rio Grande, following along the pre- 
cipitous road to Taos. 

The day we started for Taos, rain invoked by the 
prayerful Pueblos had reduced the road-bed to a sticky 
red plaster which more than once slid our car gently 
toward the edge and a drop of a hundred feet or more. 
Like the foolish virgins we were, we had forgotten our 
chains. To put on the brakes would invite a skid; not to 
do so meant a plunge over the bank. The road, like an 
afterthought, clung for dear life to the edge of a series 
of hills, now dipping like a swallow to the river bed, 
then after the usual chuck-hole at the bottom, rising in 
dizzy turns to the top of the next hill, unwinding before 
us sometimes for miles. Steep cliffs, and narrow gorges 
at times shut us completely from the world. Far below, 
the river frothed turbulently. 

Occasionally as we took a turn, a bit of bank caved 
in with us, and left one wheel treading air. On sharp 
curves a long wheel base is a great disadvantage. The 
earth is liable to crumble where rain has softened it in 
gullies, and one must learn to keep close enough to the 
inside edge in turning to prevent the back wheels from 
skimming the precipice, and yet not drive the front 
wheels into the inside bank. Add to this a surface 
of slick mud on which the car slides helplessly, heavy 
ruts and frequent boulders, steep graded curves with 
gullies at the bottom, and it will seem less surprising 
that the mail driver who takes his own car and his life 
over this road twice a week to Santa Fe receives about 
three times the wage of a Harvard professor. 

A few miles before reaching Taos we left the canyon 
and came out on a broad plain. The first sight of Taos 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 187 

takes one's breath, — it is so alien to America. Ancient 
of days, it suggests Jerusalem or some village still more 
remote in civilization. Houses terraced to five and even 
seven stories are banked against purple mountains, thir- 
teen thousand feet in the air. A little stream winds to 
the walls of the village, dividing it in two. On the banks 
women wash clothes, and men draw primitive carts to 
the water, or gallop over the plain like Arabs in the 
flowing white robes characteristic to Taos. The roofs 
of the square plaster houses, terraced one above the 
other, are peopled with naked babies. Women wrapped 
in shawls of virgin blue or scarlet outlined against the 
sky, again suggest the Orient. Constantly in these 
Pueblos one is reminded of the Far East and it is easy 
to believe these Indians of the Southwest, of sleek round 
yellow cheek and almond eyes are of Mongolian stock. 
The Grand Canyon old-timer, William Bass, tells of 
seeing a distinguished Chinese visitor talk with ease 
to some Navajos of the Painted desert, who, he re- 
ported, used a rough Chinese dialect. In the Shoshone 
country, I myself saw Indians enter a Chinese restaurant, 
and converse with the slant-eyed proprietor. When I 
asked whether they were speaking Shoshone or Chinese, 
I was told that they used a sort of lingua franca, and had 
no difficulty in understanding each other. Oriental or 
not, the origins of Taos are clouded with antiquity. 

Coronado was the first Aryan to visit this ancient 
pueblo, and we, to date, were the last. The same gentle 
courtesy met us both. We were given the freedom of 
the village, invited into the houses, and allowed to climb 
to the roof-tops, with the governor's pretty little daugh- 



188 WESTWARD HOBOES 

ter as our guide. Taos, like all pueblos, has a republi- 
can form of government, and a communal life which 
works out very peaceably. Annually the two candidates 
for governor run a foot-race, one from each division of 
the town, and the political race is indeed to the swift. 
Perhaps they get as good governors by that method as 
by our own. 

Taos, like all Gaul, is divided into tres partes, quarum 
unam the Cubists incolunt. No place could be more 
ideal for an artist's colony, with scenery unsurpassed, air 
clear and sparkling, living inexpensive, picturesque 
models to be had cheaply, and little adobe houses simply 
asking to become studios. San Geronimo de Taos, on 
the Pueblo Creek belongs to the Indians. Ranchos de 
Taos, where a fine old mission church, bulwarked with 
slanting plaster buttresses has stood since 1778, at the 
lower end of the straggling town, is given over to Mexi- 
cans. The middle section, once famous as the home 
town of Kit Carson, proclaims by its blue and lavender 
doorways, mission bells, fretted balconies and latticed 
windows, the wave of self-consciousness that had inun- 
dated American Taos. But it has its own charm and 
adapts itself admirably to the native dwellings. Kit 
Carson's old home, facing a magnificent view over the 
river, has become a sumptuous studio; and scaling down 
from that to the most humble loft over a stable, every 
available nook in the town is commandeered by artists, 
where every style of art is produced from canvasses out- 
niggling Meissonier to the giddy posters of the post- 
post-impressionists. Regardless of results, they are 
lucky artists who have the pleasant life and brisk ozone 




ARTIST'S STUDIO IN TAOS, NEW MEXICO. 
No place could be more ideal for an artist colony. 




CORONADO WAS THE FIRST WHITE MAN TO VISIT THIS ANCIENT PUEBLO 
AT TAOS, NEW MEXICO. 



THE VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE 189 

of Santa Fe in the winter, enjoy the picturesque Indian 
dances in spring and fall, and in summer paint and loaf 
in the purple glory of the Taos mountains, cooled by 
frosty air blowing from the two and a half mile snow 
line. 



CHAPTER XIV 

SAYING GOOD-BY TO BILL 

AS the spring sun daily pushed the snow line higher up 
toward the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo, and the 
time approached when we must leave Santa Fe, Toby 
and I grew sad at heart. We knew we must begin to 
think of saying good-by to Bill. 

For Bill was Santa Fe's most remarkable institution. 
He was surgeon general to all maimed cars in a radius 
of twenty miles. We had encountered mechanics com- 
petent but dishonest, and mechanics honest but incom- 
petent, and were to meet every other variety, — careless, 
sloppy, slow, stupid, and criminally negligent, but to 
Bill belongs the distinction of being the most honest, 
competent and intelligent mechanic we met in eleven 
thousand miles of garage-men. Hence he shall have a 
chapter to himself. 

When we discovered Bill, we permitted ourselves the 
luxury of a complete overhauling, and he, after one 
keen non-committal glance at our mud-caked veteran, 
silently shifted his gum, wheeled the car on to the turn- 
table, got under it and stayed there two weeks. Three 
months of mud, sand, and water had not crippled the 
valiant "old lady," but had dented her figure, and left 
her with a hacking cough. Her dustpan had been dis- 
carded, shred by shred, three spring leaves had snapped, 

the gear chain, of whose existence I learned for the first 

190 



SAYING GOOD-BY TO BILL 191 

time, rattled; the baking sun had shrunk the rear wheels 
so that they oozed oil, the batteries needed recharging, 
the ignition had not been the same since the adventure 
of the mud-hole, and there were other suspected com- 
plications. Besides which, all the tires flapped in the 
breeze, cut to sheds by frozen adobe ruts, and a few tire 
rims had become bent out of shape. A thrifty garage- 
man could have made the job last a year. 

Now Bill had two signs which every good mechanic I 
ever knew bears, — a calm manner, and prominent jaw- 
bones. Whenever, during our hobo-ing we drove into a 
garage and were greeted by a man with a grease smudge 
over his right eye, and a lower jaw which suggested an 
indignant wisdom tooth, we learned to say confidently 
and without further parley, "Look the car over, and do 
anything you think best." It was infallible. Nor was 
our confidence in Bill's jaw-bone misplaced, for at the 
fortnight's end. Bill rolled her out of the garage, shin- 
ing, sleek and groomed, purring like a tiger cat, quiet, 
rhythmic and bursting with unused power. He had 
taken off the wheels, removed the cylinder heads, repaired 
the ignition, put in new gear chains and spark plugs, ad- 
justed the carburetor to the last fraction, loosened the 
steering wheel, removed the old lady's wheeze entirely, 
and done the thousand and one things we had repeatedly 
paid other garagemen to do and they had left undone. 
He had finished in record time, and my eye, long practised 
in the agony of computing the waste motions of me- 
chanics, had noted Bill's sure accuracy and unhurried 
speed. Not content with this much, he sent in a reason- 
able bill, in which he failed to add in the date or charge 
us for time of his which other people had wasted. In 



192 WESTWARD HOBOES 

fact, nobody dared waste Bill's time. Over his work- 
bench hung a sign, "Keep out. Regardless of your per- 
sonality, this means YOU!" We took a trial spin, up a 
cork-screw and nearly vertical hill, the local bogey, and 
made it on high. I thanked Bill almost with tears, for 
being a gentleman and a mechanic. 

"I always claim," answered Bill, modestly, "that a 
man aint got no right to take other people's money, unless 
he gives 'em something in return. When I'm on a job, 
I try to do my best work, and I don't figure to charge no 
more than it's worth." 

Ah, Bill! If every garageman in this free country 
adopted your code, what a motorist's Paradise this might 
be ! Almost weeping we said good-by to Bill that day 
— our last but one, we thought, in Santa Fe. We would 
have liked to take him with us, or at least to have 
found him awaiting us at each night's stop, and Bill 
was gallant enough to say he would like to go. 

With two friends, we had planned an excursion to 
Chimayo, where in the Mexican half of the town are 
made soft, hand-woven rugs, famous the world over. 
On the way, we stopped at Pojoaque, for the purpose of 
seeing the old road-house made famous by old M. Boquet 
of fragrant memory, when Santa Fe was an army post, 
and officers rode out to lively supper parties here. A 
tangled orchard and flower garden, a well renowned for 
its pure water, and the quaint little Spanish widow of M. 
Boquet are all that is left of what was once a ship-shape 
inn where people loved to stop. The rest is cobwebs and 
rubbish. But any spot where gaiety has been enhanced 
by good food is always haunted by memories of former 
charm. 



SAYING GOOD-BY TO BILL 193 

At the sleepy Indian pueblo of Nambe, now fast di- 
minishing, we forded a trickle of a stream, hardly wide 
enough to notice, which sported down from the hills. 
Then out into a sandy waste, surrounded by red buttes, 
we drove. And then we drove no further. On a hill- 
top the car gently ceased to move, even as it had done 
outside of Chandler. For a hot hour we examined and 
experimented, till we finally fastened the guilt on the ig- 
nition. We were ten miles from everywhere, and which 
were the shorter ten miles we were not exactly sure. Like 
the hypothetical donkey, starving between two bales of 
hay, we wasted time debating in which direction to go 
for help. An Indian riding by on a scalded looking 
pony we interrogated, but like all of his race, the more he 
was questioned the less he contributed. Much against 
his will, we rented his pony, and while the man of our 
party rode bareback to Pojoaque and the nearest tele- 
phone, we coaxed the pony's owner from his sulks with 
sandwiches. Would that we had saved them for our- 
selves ! 

Two hours later. Bill rattled up, in a car shabby as a 
shoemaker's child's shoes, and as disreputable as the 
proverbial minister's son. Remembering our premature 
farewell, he grinned, lifted the hood of the car, nosed 
about for a moment, called sharply to his ten-year-old 
assistant for tools, and in two minutes the engine was 
running. Smiling just as cheerfully as if his farewell 
appearance had not cost us twenty dollars. Bill started 
his car, and wished us good luck. 

*'I wish we could take you with us. Bill," I said. 

"I sure wish I could go," said Bill. 

"Well, good-by. Bill." 



194 WESTWARD HOBOES 

"Good-by, and over the top," said Bill, driving off. 

"I hate to say good-by to Bill," said Toby and I, to 
each other. 

Thus delayed, it vvas twilight when we reached the old 
Sanctuario, famous as the Lourdes of America. Inside, 
its whitewashed walls displayed crutches and other im- 
plements of illness, as witness to the cures effected by the 
shrine. The interior as of most Mexican churches, was 
filled with faded paper flowers and tawdry gilt pictures 
of saints. Outside, twin towers and a graceful balcony, 
and a walled churchyard shaded by giant cottonwoods 
gave the church a distinction apart from all its miracles. 
At a brook nearby, a majestic, black-shawled Mexican 
madonna filled her olla, mildly cursing us that the fee 
we gave for opening the gate was no larger, lest we 
should realize it had been too large. 

Across the plaza stood a fine example of a built-up 
kiva or estufa, and nearby we dared a glance, in pass- 
ing, at a morado. But we had come to see and perhaps 
buy rugs, — those wooly, soft blankets at which the heart 
of the collector leaps. During the day, however, the 
Santa Cruz, which divides Mexican from Indian Chi- 
mayo, had risen from the melting of snows in the moun- 
tains, and we could only feast our eyes on the lovely hill- 
lined valley, with its greens and mauves, its cobalt hills 
and blossoming apricots. There was positively no way 
to cross. I remembered that Bill said he too had been 
delayed at Pojoaque by swollen streams. But the idea 
of hurrying home did not occur to us, as it might have 
to a native. We communicated our interest in rugs to 
little Indian boys and handsome swart Mexicans, who 
stripped the floors and beds of their great-grandparents, 



SAYING GOOD-BY TO BILL 195 

learning that we sought antiques. We soon had a choice 
of the greasiest and most tattered rugs the town afforded, 
but nothing worth purchasing. We were on the wrong 
side of the river, and out of luck. Relinquishing the idea 
of seeing rug-weaving in process, we at last turned home- 
ward, with a new moon menacing us over our left 
shoulder. 

Passing through a beautiful little canyon, over a road 
which tossed us like a catboat in a nor'easter, we again 
came, at dusk, to sleeping Nambe, and the brink of th€ 
stream. Toby, who was driving, plunged boldly in, with- 
out preliminary reconnoitre. We afterward agreed that 
here she made a tactical error. The trickle of the morn- 
ing, had risen to our hubs. To make matters worse, the 
stream ran one way, and the ford another. We all hurled 
directions at the unhappy Toby. 

"Keep down stream!" 

"Follow the ford!" 

"Back up !" 

"Go ahead, — go ahead!" 

Toby hesitated. Now in crossing a swift stream, to 
hesitate is to lose. The car struck the current mid-stream, 
the water dashed up and killed the engine, and the "old 
lady" became a Baptist in regular standing. Toby saw 
she was in for it, I could tell by the guilty look of the 
back of her neck. She tried frantically to reverse, but no 
response came from the submerged engine. 

"Toby," I cried in anguish, "start her, quick!" And 
then I regret to say 1 lapsed into profanity, exclaiming, 
"Oh, devil, devil, darn!" 

In a moment, everyone was standing on the seats, and 
climbing thence to the mudguard. Our cameras, coats, 



196 WESTWARD HOBOES 

pocketbooks, and the remains of some lettuce sandwiches 
floated or sank according to their specific gravity. I 
plunged my arm down to the elbow, and brought up 
two ruined cameras, and a purse which a week later was 
still wet. Meanwhile the others had climbed from the 
mudguard to the radiator, fortunately half out of water, 
and thence jumped ashore. Before I could follow suit, 
the water had risen to the back seat, and I scrambled 
ashore soaked to the knees. We were on the wrong side 
of the stream from Nambe, and the river was too deep 
for wading. Finally the man of the party risked his 
life, or at least the high boots which were the joy of 
his life, and reached the opposite shore, where lay the 
pueblo. After a long interval he returned with two In- 
dians who led a team of horses across. 

Trained as I have said poor Lo, or Pueb-Lo, to make 
a bad pun, is in matters of the spirit, in mechanics he has 
not the sense of a backward child of three years. These 
two attached a weak rope to the car, where it would have 
the least pulling power and the greatest strain, drove 
the horses off at a wrong angle, — and broke the rope. 
For two hours, with greatest good nature and patience, 
they alternately attached chains and broke them until we 
had exhausted the hardware of the entire town. It 
was now long after midnight. Having reached the 
point where we hoped the car would sink entirely and 
save us further effort, we accepted the Indian's offer of 
two beds for the ladies and a shakedown for the man, 
and went weary and supperless to bed. Toby and I 
were used to going supperless to bed, but it was hard 
on our two friends to whom we had meant to give a 
pleasant day. 



SAYING GOOD-BY TO BILL 197 

As we entered the bedroom into which the Indian 
proudly ushered us, I exclaimed "Toby I" The room 
contained two large beds, a piano between them, some 
fearful crayon portraits of Nambe's older settlers, and a 
scarlet Navajo rug. Nothing remarkable about the 
room, except that the piano and the two lace-covered beds 
denoted we were being entertained by pueblo aristoc- 
racy. But on that morning, being one of those people 
who do not start the day right until they have unloaded 
their dreams on some victim, I had compelled Toby to 
listen to the dream which had held me prisoner the pre- 
vious night. In it, we had started off into the desert 
with the "old lady," and traveled until we found our- 
selves in a sea of sand. Then, for some reason not 
clear when I woke, we abandoned the car, and set out 
afoot over wastes of sand, in which we sank to our 
ankles. All day we walked, and at night exhausted, found 
shelter in a crude building. Presently, the men in our 
party returned to say they had found beds for the women, 
but must themselves sleep on the ground. Then they led 
us into a room. And in this room were two beds, a 
piano, some crayon portraits with gimcrack ornaments 
on the wall, and on the floor a brilliant crimson rug. The 
arrangement of the furniture in the real and the dream 
world was identical. In my dream I also had a vivid 
consciousness of going to a strange and uncomfortable 
bed, tired and hungry. Now a psychoanalyst once told 
me that science does not admit the prophetic dream as 
orthodox. Yet our little excursion, ending so disas- 
trously, had not been planned till after I told my dream 
to Toby. My own firm belief is that our guardian angels 
were violating the Guardian Angels' Labor Union Laws, 



198 WESTWARD HOBOES 

working overtime to send us a warning. Would we had 
taken it ! 

This night, however, our dreams were broken. Indians 
are the most hospitable people in the world, especially 
the Pueblos, long trained to gracious Spanish customs. 
These simple hosts of ours had made us free of all 
they possessed. We could not properly blame them if 
their possessions made free with us. Their hospitality 
was all right; just what one would expect from the In- 
dian, — grave and dignified. But their Committee of 
Reception was a shade too effusive. They came more 
than half-way to meet us. Perhaps in retribution for her 
imprudent dash into the river, its members confined most 
of their welcome to Toby, with whom I shared one bed. 
She woke me up out of a sound sleep to ask me to feel a 
lump over her left eye. 

"I would rather not," I said, feeling rather cold toward 
Toby just then. 'T prefer not to call attention to my- 
self. Would you mind moving a little further away?" 

"I must say you're sympathetic," sniffed Toby. 

*'If you had looked before you leaped, you wouldn't be 
needing my sympathy." 

It was our first tiff. A moment later she jumped up as 
if in anguish of spirit. 

"I can't stand this any longer," she said, referring not 
to our quarrel, but to a more tangible affliction, which we 
afterward named Nambitis, — with the accent on the 
penult, — "I'm going to sleep on the floor." 

"Perhaps it would be as well," I answered. 

Toby made herself a nice bed on the adobe floor with 
old coats and rugs, and we went to rest, — at least ninety- 
five out of a possible hundred of us did. For some rea- 



SAYING GOOD-BY TO BILL 199 

son we sprang gladly out of bed next morning, to find 
that our hosts had taken the trouble to prepare us a 
liberal breakfast. The lump over Toby's left eye had 
spread, giving her a leering expression, but otherwise 
she was again her cheerful self. The rest of the party 
suggested it was hardly tactful for her to show herself 
wearing such an obvious reproach to our hosts on her 
countenance, and advised her to forego breakfast. Toby 
rebelled. She replied that she had only eaten two sand- 
wiches since the previous morning, and was faint from 
loss of blood, and was going to have her breakfast, 
lump or no lump. Toby is like Phil May's little boy, — 
she "do make a Gawd out of her stummick." I on the 
contrary can go two or three days without regular food, 
with no effect except on my temper. So we all sat down to 
a breakfast neatly served on flowered china, of food 
which looked like white man's food, but was so highly 
over-sugared and under-salted that we had difficulty in 
eating it. 

Our host informed us the river had been steadily ris- 
ing all night. He doubted whether we should see any 
signs of our car. His doubts confirmed a dream which 
had troubled me all night, wherein I had waked, gone 
to the river, and found the old lady completely covered by 
the turgid flood. I dreaded to investigate, for when one 
dreams true, dreams are no light matter. Somewhat 
fortified by breakfast, we went to view the wreck. With 
mingled relief and despair, we found my dream only 
about 80 per cent true. The radiator, nearest to shore, 
lay half exposed. The car sagged drunkenly on one side. 
The tonneau was completely under water, but we could 
still see the upper half of the back windows. 



200 WESTWARD HOBOES 

While others rode eight miles to telephone, we stood 
on the bank, breathlessly watching to see whether the 
water line on those windows rose or fell. The Indians 
told us the riv'er would surely rise a little, as the snow be- 
gan to melt. But Noah, looking down upon fellow suf- 
ferers, must have interceded for us. Inch by inch, the 
windows came into full view. The worst would not 
happen. A chance remained that Bill could rescue us 
before the river rose again. Bill was our rainbow, our 
dove of promise, our Ararat. 

An hour later, he rattled up to the opposite bank, 
threw us a sympathetic grin, and got to work. It was 
a pleasure to watch Bill work. It is a pleasure to watch 
anyone work provided one has no share in it oneself, 
but some people weary one by puttering. I could watch 
Bill on the hardest kind of job, and feel fresh and fairly 
rested when he finished. He always knew beforehand 
what he intended to do, and did it deliberately and easily. 
He first drove two stakes into the ground, some distance 
apart, attached a double pulley to them, and to the front 
bar of the car, the only part not under water, and he and 
his assistants pulled gradually and patiently till from 
across the river we could see the sweat stand out on their 
brows. In ten minutes, we were astonished to see the 
half drowned giant move slightly. Hope rose as the 
river fell. Bill took another reef in his trousers and 
the pulley, then another and another, and at last the old 
lady groaned, left her watery bed, shook herself, an4 
clambered up on dry land. 

We crossed on horseback to the other side and waited 
with a sick internal feeling, while Bill removed the wheels 
and examined the damage. 




THE CAR SAGGED DRUNKENLY ON ONE SIDE. 




FORDING A RIVER NEAR SANTA FE. 

Crossing fords, to our hubs, which yesterday were mere trickles and to-morrow would 
be raging torrents. 




ON THE WAV TO GALLUP. 

Jack and all sank in the soft quicksand beneath the weight of the car. 



SAYING GOOD-BY TO BILL 201 

"Everything seems all right, — no harm done," re- 
marked Toby, with hasty cheerfulness, emerging from 
the taciturnity resulting from one closed eye and a general 
atmospheric depression among the rest of us. Her re- 
mark showed that she now expected to assume her usual 
place in society. 

"If anything," I answered bitterly, "the car is Im- 
proved by its bath." 

The poor old wreck stood sagging heavily on one 
spring, two wheels off, the cushions water-logged, and 
a foot of mud and sand on the tonneau floor and encrust- 
ing the gears. Maps, tools, wraps, chains, tires and the 
sickly remains of our lunch made a sodden salad, liber- 
ally mixed with Rio Grande silt. Sticks and floating 
refuse had caught in the hubs and springs, and refused to 
be dislodged. A junk man would have offered us a pair 
of broken scissors and a 1908 alarm clock for her as 
she stood, and demanded cash and express prepaid. I 
think Toby gathered that my intent was sarcasm, for she 
relapsed Into comparative silence, while In deep gloom 
we watched Bill scoop grit out of the gears. I braced 
myself to ask a question. 

"Can you save her. Bill?" 

"Well," Bill cast a keen blue eye at the remains, "the 
battery's probably ruined, and the springs will have to 
be taken apart and the rust emorled off, and the mud 
cleaned out of the carburetor and engine, and the springs 
rehung, and if any sand has got Into the bearln's you'll 
never be through with the damage, and the cushions are 
probably done for, — life's soaked out of them." 

As Bill spoke, the Rainbow Bridge, for which we had 
planned to start in a few days, became a rainbow indeed, 



202 WESTWARD HOBOES 

but not of hope. The Grand Canyon, the Hopi villages, 
Havasupai Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier Park! Their 
red cliffs and purple distances shimmered before our eyes 
as dear, lost visions, and faded, to be replaced by a heap 
of junk scattered in a lone arroyo, and two desolate 
female figures standing on the Albuquerque platform, 
waiting for the through train east. 

"Well, Bill, will you make us an offer for her as she 
stands?" 

Bill squinted at her, and shook his head, "Don't think 
I'd better, ma'am." 

The day shone brilliant blue and gold, and the valley 
of Cottonwood sparkled like emeralds, but all seemed 
black to us. Toby looked almost as guilty as she de- 
served to look, and that, though unusual and satisfac- 
tory, was but a minor consolation. 

"Too bad," said Bill, sympathetically, "that you didn't 
sound the river before you tried to cross." 

"It was indeed," I said, without looking at anyone. 

"I didn't hear you suggest stopping," said Toby. One 
would have thought she would be too crushed to reply 
after Bill's remark, but you never can tell about Toby. 

We watched Bill methodically and quickly replace the 
wheels, shovel out the sand and mud, put the tools in 
place, wipe the cushions, and put his foot on the starter, 
the last as perfunctorily as a doctor holds a mirror to 
the nostrils of a particularly dead corpse. Instantly, the 
wonderful old lady broke into a quiet, steady purr! A 
cheer rose from the watchers on the river bank, in which 
ten little Indian boys joined, and Toby and I embraced 
and forgave each other. 

We did not say good-by to Bill. We had a rendezvous 



SAYING GOOD-BY TO BILL 203 

with BUI at the garage for the following morning. Fear- 
ful lest the engine stop her welcome throb, we jumped 
into the car, and drove the sixteen miles home, up steep 
hills and down, under our own power. Fate had one last 
vicious jab in store for us. Five minutes after starting, a 
thunder cloud burst, and rained on us till we turned into 
our driveway, when it ceased as suddenly as it started. 

What was left of the car, I backed out of the garage 
next morning. Toby stood on the running board, and 
directed me how to avoid a low hanging apricot tree, 
her eye and her spirits as cocky as ever. 

"All clear!" she called. I backed, and crashed into 
the tree. A splintering, sickening noise followed. The 
top of the car, the only part which had previously escaped 
injury, showed beautiful jagged rents and the broken 
end of a rod bursting through the cloth. 

For three days, Toby discoursed on photography, sun- 
sets, burros, geology and Pima baskets, but nobody could 
have guessed from anything she said that automobiles 
had yet been invented. At last she gave me a chance. 

"In driving over a desert road with sharp turns," she 
said confidently, "the thing is to " 

"Toby!" It was too good an opening. "As a chauf- 
feur, you make a perfect gondolier." 

Bill presented us at the end of a week with a sad- 
der but wiser car, a little wheezy and water-logged, but 
still game. When we steered it out of the garage which 
had become our second home in Santa Fe, we did not say 
good-by to Bill. We couldn't afford to. On reaching 
Albuquerque safely, we sent him a postcard. 

"Dear Bill: — The car went beautifully. We wish we 
could take you with us!" 



CHAPTER XV 

LAGUNA AND ACOMA 

IN spite of Toby's making the slight error of driving 
fourteen miles with the emergency brake on, we 
seemed to have placed misadventure behind us for a brief 
season at least. We coasted the twenty-three switch backs 
of La Bajada hill, now an old story, and returned for 
the night to the Harvey hotel at Albuquerque, where the 
transcontinental traveler gets his first notion of Western 
heat, and wonders if he is in any danger from the abo- 
rigines selling pottery on the railroad platforms, and spec- 
ulates as to whether the legs of the squaws can possibly 
fill the thick buckskin leggins they parade in so noncha- 
lantly. If it is his first visit West, he little realizes how 
Harveyized these picturesque creatures have become, and 
he snatches eagerly at what he thinks may be his last 
chance to pick up some curios. The pottery, from the vil- 
lage of Acoma, is genuine, though of a tourist quality. 
The white doeskin legs are also genuine, although many 
pueblo women have ceased to wear them except to meet 
the twelve o'clock. They always inspire in me an awed 
respect, worn under the burning sun with such sang froid. 
The explanation for this indifference to discomfort lies in 
the fact that a lady's social prominence is gaged by the 
number of doeskin wrappers she displays, as the Breton 
peasant is measured by her heavy petticoats, and a Maori 

belle by her tattooing: il faut souffrir pour etre belle. 

204 



LAGUNA AND ACOMA 205 

The Indians furnished the most entertaining spectacle 
of modern, prosperous Albuquerque, whose solid virtues 
intrigue the hobo but little. We took advantage of her 
porcelain bathtubs, and then hastened on into a more 
primitive region, which became wilder and wilder as we 
neared the Arizona boundaries. Only two little adven- 
tures befell; neither had a proper climax. A two day old 
Iamb, wobbly and frightened, had lost its mother, and 
wandered bleating pitifully from one sheep to another, 
who treated it with cold disdain. It finally approached 
our car as if it had at last reached its goal; but asking 
for nourishment, it received gasoline, and seeking woolly 
shelter, it was startled by metal walls. Piteously weak 
and terrified, the thumping of its heart visibly stirring its 
coat, it fled away in distress, with us at its frail little heels. 
Yet run our fastest, we could not catch it, though we 
tried every subterfuge. We baa-ed as if we were its 
mother, and it approached cautiously, to scamper off 
when our hands shot out to catch it. Poor little fool ! It 
had not the courage to trust us, though it longed to, and 
after a hot and weary hour, we had to leave it to starve. 
As we started off, another car shot past us, challengingly, 
its very tail light twinkling insolence. A dark and hand- 
some face leered back at us, with a full-lipped, sinister 
smile. At the next settlement, where we stopped to buy 
food, this half-breed Mephisto was there lounging against 
the counter, and looking at us with the look that is 
like a nudge. When we left, he swaggered after, and 
kept his car for some miles close behind ours. The coun- 
try was so wild that we saw a coyote sneaking through the 
sage, and not long after, a wildcat disappeared into a 
clump of pifion. Beyond the orange cliffs we saw in the 



2o6 WESTWARD HOBOES 

distance, we could expect no human assistance, and it 
was uncomfortably near nightfall. Then, to our relief, 
the road branched, one fork leading to a silver mine. 
Our Mexican shot into it, giving us a parting grimace. 
Slight enough, this was our first and last encounter with 
that particular sort of danger. 

At sunset we came to Laguna, ancient and gray as the 
rocks on which it sprawled, its church tower picked out 
against a golden sky. This is the first Kersian pueblo 
met going from east to west. Ancient as it seems, it is 
the offspring of the parent pueblo of Acoma, which itself 
descended from an older town situated on the Enchanted 
Mesa. "Laguna" seems a sad misnomer for this waste 
of sand and rock. But years ago, what Is now desert was 
a country made fertile by a great lake. When a dissen- 
sion arose In old Acoma, as frequently happened among 
these "peaceful" Indians, the dissatisfied members of the 
tribe left Acoma, and settled near the lake. Here they 
stayed from habit long after the lake had dried and Its 
green shores became barren sand-heaps, until the new 
town became as weather-beaten as Its parent. This is 
why, unlike most pueblos, Laguna and Acoma share the 
same dialect. 

Laguna, built on a solid ledge of mother rock, attracts 
attention by the notched beauty of Its skyline. It is 
entertainingly terraced on irregular streets, forced to 
conform to the shape of Its rock foundation. A ramble 
about town brings unexpected vistas. You start on what 
seems to be the street, trail along after a shock haired 
little savage in unbuttoned frock, and suddenly find your- 
self in a barnyard, gazing with a flea bitten burro upon 
the intimacies of Pueblo family life on the roof of the 




PL'EBLO WOMEN GRINDING CORN IN METATE BINS. 
The women are the millers who grind the varied colored corn in lava bins. 




PUEBLO WOMAN WRAPPINt; UEER-SKIN LEGGINS. 
A lady's social prominence is gauged by the thickness of doeskin wrappers she displays. 



LAGUNA AND ACOMA 207 

house next door. Through the village come sounds of 
the leisurely tasks of the evening. The mellow, throaty 
boom of the tombe, and syncopated rhythm of the 
corn-grinding song come from the open doors, framed in 
the warm glow of firelight. A dead coyote, waiting to 
be dressed, hangs by the tail from a vega. Children play 
in the streets. The shifting hills of shimmering sand, 
moonlight silver in the frosted air of morning, and 
golden at noon, turn from rose to violet. Above the vil- 
lage rise pencilled lines of smoke from ancient fireplaces. 
Towering above everything stands the white mass of the 
old mission, with a gleaming cross of gold cutting sharp- 
ly against the glory of the west. 

Laguna owns no hotel, so Toby and I sought out the 
missionary, whose ruddy, white-haired countenance and 
stalwart frame bespoke his Vermont origin, and whose 
hospitality bore the hearty flavor of Green Mountain 
farmhouses. At something less than what is called a pit- 
tance, he had worked for years among the Indians of the 
pueblo, and at the nearby tubercular sanitarium for gov- 
ernment Indians. He seemed to feel no superiority over 
his charges, and showed none of the complacent cant 
and proselyting zeal which distinguishes too many reser- 
vation missionaries. He had retained with delightful 
fidelity the spirit of the small community pastor working 
on terms of equality with his flock, — raising the mort- 
gage, furnishing the church parlor, encouraging the Sew- 
ing Circle exactly as he v/ould have done back in Ver- 
mont. As he told us of his work the yellow waste and 
glaring sunshine, squat 'dobe houses and alien brown 
figures faded, and we seemed to see a white spire with 
gilded weathervane, and cottages with green blinds; we 



208 WESTWARD HOBOES 

smelled lilacs and ginger cookies, and walked in a lane of 
flaming maples. 

"The work is slow here," he said. "One needs pa- 
tience. Yet looking back over the years results are 
gratifying. Gratifying. Souls who walked in darkness 
have been won to Christ. Only last night, I attended the 
bedside of a dear sister, — the oldest person I believe in 
the state. Her years number one hundred and twenty- 
six. She confessed her faith and will die in Christ." 

"Have you had many conversions?" we asked. 

"Well, — as numbers go, — not so many. Perhaps forty, 
possibly more. They will go back to their own ways. 
Yet they are a splendid people to work with, — a delight- 
ful people, I have many real friends among them. The 
parish is slowly improving. We have paid off the mort- 
gage, and are now putting an addition on the church. 
The men have erected the frame, and when the ladies of 
the parish finish planting, they will put the plaster on the 
walls." 

Thus imperceptibly had the good man merged New 
Mexico with New England. At the village school next 
morning we saw another phase of the white man's stan- 
dards grafted upon the red man. The teacher, a Pueblo 
Indian woman and a graduate of Carlisle, wife of a white 
man in the neighborhood, in spotless print dress and 
apron was showing twenty little Indians the locality of 
Asia Minor. They were neat and shining and flatteringly 
thrilled by the presence of visitors. 

"And now," said their beaming teacher, when we had 
heard their bashful recitations, "you must hear the chil- 
dren sing." 

We heard them. The difliculty would have been to 



LAGUNA AND ACOMA 209 

avoid hearing them. Bursting with delight, each of the 
twenty opened their mouths to fullest capacity, and 
twenty throats emitted siren tones, — not the sirens of 
the Rhineland, but of a steel foundry. They began on 
"Come, Little Birdie, Come," though it is doubtful if 
anything less courageous than a bald-headed eagle would 
have dared respond to the invitation. Toby clutched me, 
and I her, and thus we kept each other from bolting out 
of the door. We even managed a frozen smile of appro- 
bation as we listened to the discordant roar, like the 
voices of many hucksters, which issued from their mouths. 
A white child would have warped his throat permanently 
after such effort, but these roly-poly babies finished in 
better condition than they began. 

"I am going to let them sing one more song," said the 
teacher when we rose hastily. "They don't have visitors 
every day." 

They sang "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," and if Sweet 
Afton had been Niagara it would have wakened Mary 
less than the stertorous warning which bellowed from 
that schoolroom. Then a dozen brown hands waved in 
the air, and a clamor arose for other bits of their 
repertoire to be heard. Teacher was smilingly indul- 
gent, proud of her pupils and anxious to give them and the 
visitors a good time. So we were treated to Old Black 
Joe, and Juanita, and other sad ditties, which never 
seemed sadder than now. 

"And now you must show these ladies you are all good 
Americans," said the teacher. We all stood and sang 
the Star Spangled Banner. The children showed indi- 
viduality; they did not keep slavishly to one key. Each 
child started on the one that suited him best, and held it 



2IO WESTWARD HOBOES 

regardless of the others. By the time they were well 
started, every note in the scale was represented, includ- 
ing most of the half notes. Our patriotism ended in a 
dismal polychromatic howl, and the sudden silence which 
followed nearly deafened us. We had forgotten there 
was such a thing as silence. 

What a pity the government does not encourage the 
Indian to cultivate his own arts, instead of these alien and 
uncomprehended arts of the white man ! In his cere- 
monial dances, he is lithe, graceful, and expressive; when 
he tries the one-step and waltz he is clumsy and ludi- 
crous. His voice, strident, discordant and badly-placed 
when he attempts second-rate "civilized" music, booms 
out mellow and full-throated, perfectly placed in the 
nasal cavity, when he sings Indian melodies whose tan- 
talizing syncopations, difficult modulations, and finely 
balanced tempo he manages with precision. His music fits 
his surroundings. To hear it chanted in a wide and lonely 
desert scene, to watch its savage, untamed vigor move 
feet and bodies to a climax of ecstatic emotion, until it 
breaks all bounds and produces the passion It is supposed 
to symbolize is to understand what music meant to the 
world, before it was tamed and harnessed and had its 
teeth extracted. To wean the Indian of this means of 
self-expression, and nurse him on puerile, anaemic melo- 
dies, — it is stupid beyond words, and unfortunately, it is 
of a piece with the follies and stupidities our government 
usually exhibits in its dealings with its hapless wards. If 
I seemed to laugh it was not at those enthusiastic brown 
babies, rejoicing in their ability to produce civilized dis- 
cords, but at the pernicious system which teaches them 
to be ignorant in two languages. 



LAGUNA AND ACOMA 211 

We finally left the strains of patriotism behind us, as 
we drove across the level plain to Acoma. Two tracks 
in a waste of sand made the road to the Sky City. A day 
sooner, or a day later, the wind would shift the fine 
grained beach sand, left there by some long vanished 
ocean, and block the road with drifted heaps; today, by 
the aid of our guide Solomon's shovel, we were just able 
to plough through it. 

Dotting the lonely landscape, flocks of white sheep 
and shaggy goats were tended by Indian boys with bows 
and arrows. They fitted the pastoral scene ; for a thou- 
sand years, perhaps, the ancestors of these same flocks 
were watched over by the ancestors of these boys In blue 
overalls. Suddenly to our left, rising from the flat plain, 
we saw blocked against the sky a shimmering tower of 
soft blue and gold, seeming too evanescent for solid rock. 
Its sheer walls thrust upward like the shattered plinth 
of a giant's castle from a base of crumbling tufa. In it- 
self a small mountain. It was the mesa of Old Acoma, 
called by the Indians the Enchanted Mesa. 

I believe that two Harvard students of archaeology 
once reached the summit of this perpendicular rock, by 
means of a rope ladder shot to the top. But no white 
man by himself has for centuries gained a foothold on Its 
splintered walls. Yet once, from legend borne out by bits 
of broken pottery and household utensils found at the 
base of the mesa, a large and flourishing Indian village 
lived on its summit in safety from marauders. A stair- 
way of rock, half splintered away from the main rock 
was the only means of access to the village. A similar 
stairway may be seen today in the Second Mesa of the 
Hop! villages. 



212 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Up these stairs, old women toiled with filled ollas on 
their heads, and little boys and men clambered down 
them to work in the fields below. It is their ghosts the 
Indians fear to meet between sunset and sunrise. For 
one day, while the men were absent plowing or tending 
their herds, a bolt of lightning struck the stairway and 
in a moment it lay the same crumbling heap of splintered 
rock one sees today at the base of the mesa. To envision 
the horrors that followed imagine a sudden catastrophe 
destroying all stairways and elevators in the Flatiron 
building, while the men were away at lunch, and the ste- 
nographers left stranded on the top floor. The case 
of Old Acoma was even more pitiful, for those left on 
the top were old men, helpless from age, women and 
babies. They lived, ghastly fear and despair alternating 
with hope as long as their supply of corn stored in the 
barren rock held out, — perhaps a month, perhaps longer. 
Then one by one they died, while their men on the plain 
below tried frantically to reach them, and at last gave up 
hope. No wonder that when the towering mass which is 
their monument fades from blue and gold to grayish pur- 
ple, the Indians turn their ponies' heads far to one side, 
and make a loop rather than be found in its neighbor- 
hood. 

Across the plateau a few miles from the Enchanted 
Mesa stands another mesa, longer and lower than the 
other, reached from the ground by several paths. Here 
the survivors transferred their shattered lives, built a 
village like the old one, and in time became the ancestors 
of the present Acomans. While we drove toward it, 
listening to the story our guide told of that early tragedy 
in his exact Carlisle English, we nearly added three 




ACOMA, NEW MEXICO. 

Dotting the lo:«ely landscape flocks of white sheep and shaggy goats were tended by Indian boys with 

bows and arrows. 




BLKROS LADEN WITH FIRE-WOOD, SANTA IE, NEW MEXICO. 



LAGUNA AND ACOMA 213 

more ghosts to those already haunting the plain. Ahead 
of us the road had caved in over night, as roads have a 
way of doing in this country, leaving a yawning canyon 
thirty feet deep, toward which we sped at twenty miles 
an hour. Our brakes stopped us at the edge. I hastened 
to back, and make a side detour around the chasm, where 
in time our tracks would become the road, until some 
other freshet should eat into and undermine the porous 
ground. Roads in New Mexico are here today and 
gone tomorrow, cut ofF in their flower by a washout or 
a sandstorm, or simply collapsing because they weary of 
standing up. A miss is always as good as a mile, and our 
close escape was worth singling out from a dozen others 
only because of its dramatic reminder of what hap- 
pened in the dim past from almost the same cause, on 
that magnificent rock. Both the Enchanted Mesa and the 
gaping hole behind us pointed out the uncertainty of life, 
which seemed so eternal in that brilliant spring sunshine. 
Less dominating than the haunted mesa, New Acoma, 
which Is, by the way, the oldest continuously inhabited 
town in the United States, reveals its towering pro- 
portions only at closer range. To view it best, it 
should be approached from the direction of Acomita. 
It stands 357 feet above the floor of the desert. Under 
its buttressed cliffs, a sheep corral and a few herder's 
huts help to measure its great height. In the lee of the 
rock we left the car to the mercy of a group of slightly 
hostile women filling their waterjars at the scum-covered 
spring. The Acomans are not noted for pretty manners 
or lavish hospitality. Probably if a second bolt of light- 
ning were to approach Acoma, a committee from the Gov- 
ernor would refuse it admittance unless it paid a fee of 



214 WESTWARD HOBOES 

five dollars. It is said that since the San Diego Exposi- 
tion, when the Acomans acquired an inflated idea of the 
cash value of their picturesqueness, tourist gold must 
accompany tourist glances at their persons, their pottery, 
their village, their children, and even the steep, hard 
trail up to their little stronghold. 

We thought we had almost earned the freedom of the 
town by our toilsome climb, first over a young mountain 
of pure sea sand in which we sank ankle deep, and then 
hand over hand up a steep ledge of rock, where ancient 
grooves were. worn for fingers and toes to cling to. Cen- 
turies of soft shod feet had hollowed these footholds, and 
centuries of women and men had carried food and water 
and building materials over this wearisome trail. Yet the 
Acoman may be right in demanding toll. He has gone to 
infinite trouble through generations of hard labor to per- 
fect the little stronghold where he preserves his precious 
individuality. The giant beams in his old church, the 
mud bricks and stone slabs for his houses, the last dressed 
sheep and load of groceries, the very dirt that covers his 
dead were brought to the summit on the backs of his 
tribe. Acoma to the native is not an insignificant 
village of savages, but by treaty with the United States an 
independent nation; proud of its past, serenely confident 
of its future. It is almost as large as Monte Carlo, or the 
little republic of Andorra; with the assertive touchiness 
which so often goes with diminutive size, both in people 
and nations. Being a nation, why should it not have the 
same right to say who shall enter its gates, and under 
what conditions, as the United States; that parvenu re- 
public surrounding it? 

Nevertheless the Acoman is not popular, even among 




AT THE FOOT OF THE TRAIL, ACOMx\. 

(Enchanted Mesa in middle distance.) 

Less dominating than the haunted Mesa, New Acoma reveals its towering proportions 
only on nearer approach. 




THE ENXHAXTED MESA. ACO^L\, NEW MEXICO. 

A shimmering tower of blue and gold, seeming too evanescent for solid rock. 



LAGUNA AND ACOMA 215 

Indians of other villages. Though neighboring towns, 
Laguna and Acoma always have swords drawn. The 
Acoman has a wide reputatFon for being surly and inhos- 
pitable, and I am willing to admit he does his best to live 
up to that reputation. 

Many tourists have made the journey across the desert, 
and the climb to the mesa's top, only to be turned back or 
admitted at exorbitant fees. Luck was with us. We ar- 
rived on a day when the governor and all the men of the 
village were at work in the fields of Acomita, and only 
the women and children, as on the fateful day when the 
Enchanted Mesa was struck, remained in the village. 
Our guide, being from Laguna, spoke the dialect of the 
Acomans, and proved a doughty aid. Hardly had our 
heads shown above the rocky stairs when the gray land- 
scape was suddenly peopled by women and children; the 
children clad in one gingham garment, or, if of tender 
age, in nothing save the proverbial string of beads, for 
even the smile was missing from their faces. Most of 
the women, short-skirted, with brilliant floating scarves 
on their heads, carried babies slung in knotted shawls. 
Their clamor at sight of Toby's camera required no 
knowledge of Acomese to be recognized as vituperative. 
They seemed as anxious to be photographed as a burglar 
is to have his thumb-prints taken. They were in fact so 
uncomplimentary that we recalled uneasily the Spanish 
monk who visited the town to make converts, and was 
hustled down to the plain by the short trail. No tourist 
uses this trail if he can help himself. It leads off the 
walled edge of the graveyard into space for three hun- 
dred odd feet, and ends on the rocks below. With great 
presence of mind the monk made a parachute of his flow- 



2i6 WESTWARD HOBOES 

ing skirts, and alighted unhurt on the desert. Wearing 
khaki breeches, we closed the camera regretfully. 

An Indian's prejudice against the camera arises logi- 
cally from his theological belief that nature abhors a 
duplicate. With keenest powers of observation, he has 
noted that no two trees, no two leaves, no animals, even 
no blades of grass are exactly alike. Hence, when he 
makes a rug, a basket or an olla, he never duplicates it 
absolutely. Therefore he fears the camera's facsimile 
of Nature. If he allows himself to be photographed, 
he believes that something of himself passes into the 
black box, and thereafter his soul is halved of its power. 
If he afterward falls sick, undergoes misfortune or dies, 
he attributes it to this sin against an inexorable law of 
Nature. It all sounds childishly crude, yet a much 
respected man named Plato held a somewhat similar be- 
lief. 

The difference between Plato and the Pueblo Indians 
lies less in their theology than in the ease with which a 
piece of silver changes its effectiveness. Among the river 
Pueblos, we could manufacture free-thinkers for a quar- 
ter apiece, but at Acoma, the process threatened to be as 
expensive as a papal dispensation. We appeased their 
gods by putting away our camera, but having satisfied the 
Church, we still had to deal with the State. The boldest 
and fattest citlzeness of the Sky City, girt round with a 
sash of Kelly green, triumphantly produced a paper. 
Contrary to her manifest expectation, it did not shrivel 
us. It was written in sprawly Spanish on the reverse of 
a grocer's bill, and even at present prices no grocer's bill 
could intimidate us ; we had seen too many of them. Solo- 
mon deciphered it as a command in absentia from the 



LAGUNA AND ACOMA 217 

Governor to pay five dollars a head or decamp at once. 

Meanwhile the women, from ten years up, had brought 
us offerings — at a price — of pottery, in the making of 
which the Acomans excel all other tribes. Seeing a 
chance for a strategic compromise, through our faithful 
and secretly sympathetic Solomon, we announced we 
would either buy their pottery or pay the governor's toll, 
but we would not do both. We succeeded in maintaining 
an aspect of firm resolve, and after many minutes of de- 
bate, or what sounded like debate in any tongue, they 
wisely concluded that what was theirs was their own, and 
what was the governor's was something else entirely. 
We instantly compounded a crime against the State, and 
acquired many barbaric and gorgeously designed ollas. 

We were now permitted to wander freely about the 
village, though the women after they sold their pottery 
retired to their houses and kept the doors closed. At 
the head of the village near where the trail enters, stands 
the old stone church, forbidding and bare as a Yorkshire 
hillside, built of giant timbers and small stones wedged 
hard together. It has stood there, looking off over the 
cliff, since 1699. ^^^ ungracious front, unsoftened by 
ornament and eloquent of gruelling labor, fits the hard 
little village. Its really magnificent proportions tell a 
story of incredible effort; no wonder it looks proudly 
down on the desert from the height which it has con- 
quered. Each timber, some large enough to make a 
burden for fifty men, each rock, each fastening and bolt, 
came up the trail we had taken nearly an hour to climb, 
on the shoulders of a little people hardly more than five 
feet tall. It is the only Indian mission I can remember 
built entirely of stone slabs, due perhaps to the difficulty 



2i8 WESTWARD HOBOES 

of carrying up mud and water in sufficient quantities for 
the great eight foot thick walls and giant towers. 

Between the church facade and the parapet which over- 
looks the desert is a crowded graveyard, containing in 
deep layers the bones of many generations of Acomans. 
Even the soil in which they rest was brought from the 
plain to form a bed over the mother rock of the mesa. 
Each year the level of the graveyard comes a trifle 
nearer the top of the parapet. Bits of pottery clutter the 
surface of the graveyard, not accidentally, as we at first 
imagined, but due to the Indian custom of placing choice 
ollas at the head and feet of the dead, to accompany them 
on their long journey. It is a bleak God's Acre: not a 
tree shades the bare surface. The four winds of heaven 
sweep it mercilessly, and the hot sun beats down on it. 
Yet a few feet beyond it becomes glorious, "with the glory 
of God, whose light is like unto a stone most precious, 
even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." For the desert 
below is not a waste of sand, arid and monotonous, but a 
filtered radiance of light broken Into pure color. Those 
who know only the beauty of green fields and blue waters 
cannot vision the unreal and heavenly splendor we saw 
from the Acoma churchyard, as convincing to the inner 
self as if Earth, that old and dusty thought of God, dis- 
solved before our eyes and crystallized again into a song 
of light and color, as it was at the beginning. 

Acoma, different as it was, reminded me oddly of the 
New England nature. At its heart lay a spiritual beauty, 
— this intense beauty of the desert, — and wrapped about 
it a shell of hard, chill unloveliness. The three little 
streets, dribbling off to the edge of the rock, had no wel- 
come for us. Its houses, two and three tiered, slabbed 




A STREET IN ACOMA, NEW MEXICO, 
A flock of ducks splashed in a rainpool in the middle of the roai 



"^ 




THE ACOMA MISSION, NEW MEXICO. 
At the head of the village stands the old stone church, built with i;iant timbers. 



LAGUNA AND ACOMA 219 

with flint instead of the more pleasing adobe, closed tight 
to our approach. The windows were mean and tiny, 
made before the era of glass, of translucent slabs of mica, 
roughly set in the walls. The houses, bleak and black- 
ened, were roughly masoned of the same flint-like stone as 
the church. The few interiors we saw were barely fur- 
nished; a few bowls on the dirt floor, a lava corn bin, — 
nothing more. A flock of ducks splashed in a rainpool 
in the middle of the road ; a mangy mongrel yapped at us, 
and women on the housetops scolded whenever Toby 
ventured to produce her camera. With their colored 
veils, red skirts and bright sashes they gave the village 
its only animation, as they brought out more and more 
bits of pottery to tempt us, carrying it carelessly on their 
heads down the ladders of the houses. 

Solomon, the only man in sight, took every opportunity 
to efface himself whenever the bargaining raised a cross- 
ruff of feeling. He even ducked around a corner when a 
very stout lady, having sold us all her pottery, again 
brought up the subject of our paying five dollars ad- 
mission. We appeased her by offering her a bribe to 
carry our purchases down to the car. While we were 
still halfway down, lifting our feet laboriously from the 
heavy sand, we saw her, a tiny round dot, with the ollas 
balanced above her floating turquoise scarf, stepping 
blithely and lightly over the desert floor. 

"What a pity we couldn't get any pictures," I said to 
Toby, as we raced a thunder-cloud back to Laguna. 

"H'm!" said Toby. "I took a roll of pictures while 
you kept them busy selling pottery. I got a beauty of 
the fat woman who made such a fuss. I must say it would 
be an improvement if half of her passed into the camera." 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE GRAND CANYON AND THE HAVASUPAI CANYON 

A GLITTERING day, cool and sweet. Long 
shadows slanted through the scented Coconino 
Forest. The Gothic silences of the woods were clean of 
underbrush as an English park. Endless rows of pines 
had dropped thick mats of needles on the perfect road, 
so that our wheels made no sound. Beside these pines of 
northern Arizona our greener New England varieties 
seem mere scrubs. Then, unexpectedly, we passed the 
forest boundaries. Driving a few rods along the open 
road, we had our first sight of the Canyon at Grand 
View Point, with the sun setting over its amethyst chasm. 
Years before, stepping directly from an eastern train, 
like most tourists I had seen the Canyon as my first 
stunned inkling of the extraordinary scale on which an 
extravagant Creator planned the West. This time, Toby 
and I had the disadvantage of coming newly to it after 
being sated with the heaped magnificence of the Rockies. 
Would its vastness shrink? Would it still take our breath 
away? I don't know why people want their breath taken 
away. In the end, they usually put up a valiant fight to 
keep it, but at other times, they constantly seek new ways 
to have it snatched from them. But we need not have 
worried about the Grand Canyon. It is big enough and 
old enough to take care of itself. It could drink up 

Niagara in one thirsty sip, and swallow Mt. Washington 

220 



THE GRAND CANYON 221 

in a mouthful. It could lose Boston at one end, and New 
York at the other, and five Singer buildings piled atop 
each other would not show above the rim. 

Not that I mean to attempt a description of the Can- 
yon. To date, millions have tried it, from the lady who 
called it pretty, to the gentleman who pronounced it a 
wonderful place to drop used safety razor blades. They 
all failed. The best description of the Grand Canyon 
is in one sentence, and was uttered by an author who had 
never bought a post-card in El Tovar. "What is man, 
that Thou art mindful of him!" 

As I cannot leave blank pages where the Canyon should 
be given its due, I must be content with skimming along 
its rim, and dipping here and there down among its 
mountain tops, like the abashed little birds that plunge 
twitteringly into its silences. It is so great a pity that 
most of those who "see" the Canyon do not see it at all. 
They arrive one morning, and depart the next. They 
walk a few rods along its edge at El Tovar, visit the 
Hopi house, and hear the Kolb Brothers lecture. If ad- 
venturous, they don overalls or divided skirts, mount a 
velvet-faced burro who seems afflicted with a melancholy 
desire to end his tourist-harassed existence by a side-step 
over Bright Angel. They speak afterward with bated 
breath — the tourists, not the burros — of the terrors of a 
trail which is a boulevard compared to some in the Can- 
yon. The first moment, it is true, is trying, when it drops 
away so steeply that the burro's ears run parallel with the 
Colorado, but after several switchbacks they point hea- 
venward again, until Jacob's Ladder is reached. Few 
trails in the West are so well graded and mended, and 
walled on the outside to prevent accident. Being cen- 



222 WESTWARD HOBOES 

trally situated, the Bright Angel gives an open vista of the 
length and breadth of the Canyon where the coloring is 
most brilliant and mountain shapes oddly fantastic. It is 
an excellent beginning, but only a beginning after all. 

There are so many ways to "do" the Canyon, that vast 
labyrinth that could not be "done" in a thousand years! 
The best way of all is to take a guide and disappear be- 
neath the rim, following new trails and old down to the 
level of the pyramidal peaks, to the plateau midway be- 
tween rim and river, then wind in and out of the myriad 
of small hilly formations clustering about these great 
promontories which spread out from the mainland like 
fingers from a hand. The river, a tiny red line when 
seen from the top, froths and tumbles into an angry tor- 
rent half a mile wide. Its roar, with that of its tribu- 
taries, never is out of one's consciousness, echoing upon 
the sounding board of hundreds of narrow chasms. It is 
remarkable how soon the world fades into complete obli- 
vion, and this rock-bound solitude is the only existence 
which seems real. I once spent ten days on the plateau. 
At the end of a week I had forgotten the names of my 
most intimate friends, and on the ninth day I spent sev- 
eral minutes trying to recall my own name. I was so 
insignificant a part of those terrific silences, to have a 
name hardly seemed worth while. One could forget a 
great sorrow here within a month. If I had to die within 
a stated time, I should want to spend the interval within 
the red walls of the Grand Canyon, the transition to 
eternity would be so gradual. 

All along the plateau there are by-trails and half- 
trails and old trails where immense herds of wild burros 
congregate, and the bleached bones of their ancestors lie 



THE GRAND CANYON 223 

thick on the ground. Not an hour's ride from the Bright 
Angel Trail is hidden one of the prettiest spots on earth. 
A little side path which few take leads from it around 
a great porphyry-colored cliff. Here we made camp after 
a dry, burning trip, our horses reeking with lather, and 
gasping with thirst. We rode along a little stream 
choked with cotton wood saplings. 

"Ride ahead," ordered our sympathetic guide, who had 
a sense of the dramatic common to most of his profes- 
sion. He wanted to give us the pleasure of discovering 
for ourselves. In a moment we came upon it, amazed. 
Gone was the arid Golgotha we had been struggling 
through. The stream had widened just where a rocky 
shelf dropped down to shelter it with a high wall. Low- 
growing trees and shrubs on the other side left an opening 
only wide enough to penetrate, and we suddenly entered a 
miniature grotto which seemed more the work of a land- 
scape artist than of nature. The rock and shrubs en- 
closed completely a green pool, wide and deep enough 
to swim in. The water was cold and clear, its bottom 
fringed with thick velvety moss. The trees met overhead 
so densely that the sky showed only in tiny flecks on an 
emerald surface vivified by the reflection of sunlit 
leaves. The curved rock hiding the pool on three sides 
was covered arm-deep from top to bottom with maiden- 
hair fern, and sprinkled through this hanging garden 
were the bright scarlet blossoms of the Indian paint- 
brush. As a crowning delight three little white cas- 
cades trickled through this greenery into the pool. A 
nymph would want to bathe here. We were not nymphs, 
but the weather was hot, the guide discreet and the pool 
so hidden it could not be seen ten feet away. 



224 WESTWARD HOBOES 

We camped gratefully over-night here. When In- 
dians were plentiful in the Canyon this was one of their 
favorite camps. Around the corner of the ledge, we came 
upon some dry caves showing traces of former habita- 
tion. In a little stone oven they may have built I saw 
the dusty tail of a rattler flicker and disappear among 
the warm ashes of our fire. The refreshed horses 
munched all night on the luxuriant grass, sometimes com- 
ing perilously near to stepping on our sleeping-bags. 
Toby woke me at dawn. "Look!" One hundred asses 
were circled about, gazing fascinated at us. When we 
moved they galloped to the four winds. 

From Bass Camp, kept by William Bass, one of the 
pioneer guides of the Canyon, it is twenty odd miles by 
an uncertain wagon trail to Hilltop, for which we started 
the next morning. Very few of those thousands who visit 
Grand Canyon yearly even know of the existence of 
Havasupai Canyon, whose starting point is Hilltop. 
Fewer visit it. Within its high, pink walls is a narrow, 
fertile valley, watered by a light blue ribbon of water, — 
the Land of the Sky Blue water, celebrated in the popu- 
lar song by Cadman, the home of a little known and 
very neglected tribe of Indians, the Havasupai. Hava- 
supai means literally Children of the Blue Water. It is a 
fairy vale, with grottoes and limestone caverns, seven 
cataracts, three of them higher than Niagara, jungles of 
cacti, mines of silver and lead, springs running now 
above, now beneath the earth's surface, groves of tropi- 
cal and semi-tropical fruit, in a summer climate as moist 
and warm as the interior of a hothouse. 

We reached this heaven over an unimproved trail so 
nearly vertical that had it been any steeper our heads 



THE LAND OF THE SKY-BLUE WATER, HAVASUPAI CANYON, ARIZONA. 



THE GRAND CANYON 225 

would have preceded our feet. Sometimes our horses 
balked, and had to be pulled forward by the bridle, the 
more nervous becoming panicky, and trying to turn back. 
It takes a bad trail to make a Western broncho do that. 
Frequently we had to dismount, and avoiding their hoofs, 
urge them to leap obstructing boulders. Except for the 
usual mesquite and sage, the trail was barren of vegeta- 
tion, and the sun found us out and scourged us. Old 
travelers will speak of Havasupai Canyon as the hottest 
resort in this world, with even odds on the next. We 
rejoiced when, an hour later, we rested under a jutting 
ledge of cliffs where springs called Topocoba made a 
malodorous pool which had been fouled by many wild 
horses. Trees and overhanging rocks gave us moderate 
relief from the burning sun. We reclined, panting, while 
the horses' packs were loosened and they made friends 
with a band of Indian horses which roam the Canyon. 

This oasis is one of the last links in the story of the 
Mountain Meadows Massacre, the horror of the fifties. 
Few know that when John Lee escaped by what after- 
ward was named Lee's Ferry into the Grand Canyon, and 
thence by some devious route then known only to himself, 
and even now known to very few, to this refuge, he sub- 
sisted here for nearly two years on what he could shoot 
and trap while Federal officers scoured Utah for him. 
He found a rich vein of lead which is still unworked, and 
by melting ore from it traded it to the Navajos for am- 
munition. He finally worked his way back to Lee's 
Ferry, where he was recognized and captured. I was 
told that he was a relative, — I believe an uncle, — of Gen. 
Robert E. Lee. 

We looked up, on reaching the bottom of the trail, to 



226 WESTWARD HOBOES 

find Hilltop almost directly overhead, or so It seemed. 
The descent at this part of the canyon actually measures 
about 2600 feet, and a plumb line dropped from a hori- 
zontal one drawn over the precipice for 42 rods would 
strike the bottom of the trail. Every bit of merchan- 
dise reaching the little village of the Havasupal must be 
carried on mule-back down this helter-skelter mass of 
boulders and winding ledges. Once an enterprising su- 
perintendent (of whom the Havasupal have had all too 
few) tried to Import a melodeon for the benefit of the 
church services he Instituted for the Indians. It reached 
the bottom, but it was too entangled with burro bones and 
twisted wires to be of any use except as a curiosity. 

To reach the village, one follows the winding river 
bed for several miles between cliffs of beautifully colored 
sandstone, flame, pink or purple as the light plays on it. 
Some of these walls stand nearly a thousand feet high. 
The river, nearly dry now, and occasionally disappearing 
underground, had been a torrent In the spring, as we saw 
from the black water marks high over our heads. Dur- 
ing the winter, the Indians are obliged to live In caves 
halfway up these walls, while the river inundates their vil- 
lages, carrying away their flimsy willow houses on Its tide. 
Some Havasupal take to Hilltop for the winter. Then 
when the river returns to its banks in spring and the 
Havasupal climb down from their chilly caves, the valley 
becomes a little Paradise, luxuriant and secret. The 
little pale blue stream is bordered all along Its course with 
beds of watercress a dozen feet deep, sharpened deli- 
ciously by the lime water In which it grows. The bleak 
and thorny mesquite is transformed by masses of feathery 
leaves, and its heavily pollened yellow catkins fill the nar- 




HORSEMAN IN HAVASUPAI CANYON, ARIZONA. 

The small dark spot on the edge of the floor of the canyon is the Horseman, giving 
an idea of the scale. 



THE GRAND CANYON 227 

row valley with a scent like lilies and willow sap. The 
willows native to this region wear slenderer leaves than 
our home trees, and are festooned with fragrant laven- 
der flowers, shaped like doll orchids. Never have I seen 
such lavishness of cactus in bloom. The prickly pear 
creeps with its giant claws across the sand, its red blos- 
soms giving place to rows of unsightly purple bulbs, which 
later in the year make good eating. 

We gathered armfuls of the watercress, our first bit of 
green food in weeks, for the West lives mainly by virtue 
of the can-opener, and has yet to discover the value of 
vitamines. Our horses splashed to their knees in the 
cooling stream. From time to time a sharp turn in the 
canyon displayed long vistas from lateral canyons, end- 
ing in far-off mountains which may have been part of 
the Father of all Canyons. Frequently the river dropped 
underground, as rivers do here, taking all the spring ver- 
dure with it, and reappeared again to make a veritable 
Happy Valley, the like of which few ever see on this 
earth. 

Narrow at the entrance, it widens to an oval sur- 
rounded by thousand-foot walls glowing with color, 
its floor of new alfalfa shining like green enamel. Giant, 
shady cottonwoods line the river and the lazy road mean- 
dering beside it along the valley. A deep blue sky, nearly 
hidden by sun-flecked leaves, arches over rose-red cliffs. 
Before the agency, women, with stolid dark faces and 
head-dresses made of four brilliant handkerchiefs sewn 
together into a long scarf, gathered, chattering with 
excitement at sight of the white women, making simple 
friendly overtures, offering us yellow plums, and giggling 
good-naturedly at our riding breeches. They themselves 



228 WESTWARD HOBOES 

wore calico skirts billowing to the ground, in a style 
popular in the eighties. 

The agent hospitably put his house at our disposal, 
though he was preparing to leave soon for another post. 
He was a homesick man. Life in Paradise is bad for the 
civilized. He and his wife were the only white people in 
the canyon, and he admitted that at times the Indians 
were too much with him; — while we were there, in fact, 
they camped all day on his lawn. And since all that he 
uses must be packed down the trail, he was obliged to dis- 
pense with most unessentials and many essentials. It 
must be admitted, too, that this reservation has been 
usually neglected by the Indian Commissioners, which 
makes life hard both for the agent and the tribe. 

Though this natural garden has long harbored vari- 
ous tribes, the length of the Havasupais' tenancy and 
origin is uncertain. They are possible akin to the Walla- 
pis and Yumas. Their history tells of a slow drifting 
northward from the Tonto basin, then the San Francisco 
peaks, and later, the Grand Canyon. Their skin is in- 
tensely brown, almost mulatto, their short, black hair in 
ill-kempt thatches. Having long known bitter poverty, 
they lack the beautiful silver trappings of their northern 
neighbors. The tribe has dwindled to a few hundred 
people. For years they had to travel more than a hun- 
dred miles to a government physician; consequently tu- 
bercular ulcers, trachoma and other revolting diseases 
ravaged the tribe, leaving the fortunate survivors so un- 
beautlful to behold, and unpleasant to live among that 
reservation agents, often inferior themselves, treated 
them with scant sympathy or open contempt. The men 
are fair farmers, and the women rival the Pomos in bas- 




-■V 




THE GRAND CANYON 229 

ketry, but their remoteness prevents their making a living 
thereby. Their lovely valley is too narrow for the sheep 
grazing of the Navajos, and no oil wells have made them 
millionaires, like the Cherokees. With the winter floods, 
their life becomes meager and rheumatic. The govern- 
ment seems to assume that the unimportant handful, so 
inconveniently remote, Is likely to die out soon, — so why 
trouble about them? 

Visitors are so rare that we were the centre of an ad- 
miring group on the agent's lawn. Havasupai from nine 
months to ninety years freely commented on our every 
move. They imitated us as we ate apricots, and Imi- 
tated us as we threw away the pits. The chief's wife, 
a bride from the Wallapi, centered her fascinated gaze 
on Toby, and nearly sent that young lady Into hysterics 
by faithfully repeating every word and Inflection she 
uttered. 

Though of the sincerest flattery, this mimicry finally 
palled, and we made our way to what we had been told 
was a secluded nook of the river, where we might bathe 
unmolested. Seclusion was essential, as we had to bathe 
as the small boy does, sans clothes and sans reproche. 
We found the nook, the river shaded by dense osiers, 
but its shore bordering the main street of the village. 
Several Havasupai rode by our swimming hole, and we 
ducked. In danger, like some of Toby's films, of overex- 
posure. Their heads turned as gentlemen's naturally 
would in such circumstances, — or, not to be ambiguous, 
— away. These Havasupai, though dirty and unread, 
were gentlemen, according to the definition of a certain 
Pullman porter I once met. 

Being about to descend from an upper berth on a 



230 WESTWARD HOBOES 

crowded sleeper I had inquired of the porter if the berth 
below was occupied. 

"Yas'm," the porter replied. "A man, lady. But he's 
a gen'lman. He's turned his face to the wall. An' now 
he is a shuttin' his eyes. Take youah time, lady." 

I relate our adventure, not to flaunt our brazen conduct 
— the valley registered one hundred odd in the twilight, 
and you would have done as we did, — but to illustrate the 
Tightness of certain Indian instincts, not confined to these 
few Havasupai. 

It was the following day, when we explored the lower 
Cataract canyon, that we had our supreme experience in 
bathing, the bath of baths, before which Susanna's, 
Marat's, Anna Held's, Montezuma's, Hadrian's, Messa- 
lina's, Diana's and other famous ablutions were as 
naught. Our ride took us into the lower village, past the 
prim board houses the government erects and the Indians 
refuse to inhabit, to the clusters of thatched mud and 
reed huts which they prefer. The chief of the tribe sat 
before his dwelling, his family about him to the third 
and fourth generation, including his new Wallapi wife. 
We bought baskets from him, prompting him to call 
"Hanegou" after us. 

"What does 'Hanegou' mean?" asked Toby. 

"It means 'fine,' 'all right,' 'how do you do' or 'good- 
by'," answered the guide. 

It seemed a convenient sort of word, as It has several 
lesser meanings as well. As we rode along I amused my- 
self by inventing a conversation in Havasupai, quite a 
long imaginary conversation between two Havasu bucks. 
It is remarkable how quickly I can pick up a language. 

ist. Havasu. "Hanegou?" (How do you do?) 



THE GRAND CANYON 231 

2d. Havasu. "Hanegou." (How do you do?) 

1st. Hav. "Hanegou." (Fine.) 

2d. Hav. "How are crops?" (In Havasupal, of 
course). 

1st. Hav. "Hanegou." (All right.) 

2d. Hav. "Hanegou!" (Fine!) 

I St. Hav. "Hanegou." (Well, good-by.) 

2d. Hav. "Hanegou!" (Good-by, yourself !) 

Then the two would pass on, each no doubt thinking of 
the other, "What a card that fellow is — always getting 
off some new wheeze!" 

Before the chief's Hanegous had died away, we were 
riding through an enchanting glade, half forest, half 
orchard. Golden, luscious apricots hung so low that we 
picked handfuls as we rode under the trees. Then the 
tangle of half-tropical growth grew thicker, till the whole 
red-walled valley was a mass of feathery verdure. It 
opened suddenly upon the river at a broad quiet ford, 
through which the horses splashed eagerly. 

"Look back," said the guide. Over our shoulders 
we saw a sight that alone would have repaid us for our 
two days' ride. Framed by the green jungle, a delicate 
exquisite white waterfall high above us fell into a series 
of rocky basins, with the water from these making smaller 
shadows and rapids until it reached the ford. They were 
the Navajo Falls, which in a country less prodigal of won- 
ders would have a reputation all to themselves. 

As we continued up and down through the thicket, a 
veritable flight of stone steps too steep for descending on 
horseback dismounted us, and again quite casually we 
looked to our right, and saw falls twice the height of 



232 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Niagara. But Niagara cannot display the same back- 
ground of vivid cliffs, long canyon vistas, tangled and 
matted with tropical trees and vines, nor Its perfect pool 
of aquamarine. But to name a waterfall Bridal Veil 
is like naming a Smith offspring John. 

Mooney's Fall, the third and grandest of all In this 
rare canyon, was more appropriately named, though 
whether In reverence or irreverence is hard to judge. 
For this was doubly Mooney's Fall. Mooney was a pros- 
pector. Intent on investigating some of the rich veins of 
lead, gold and silver still unexplored In this canyon. In 
descending a cliff sheer enough to daunt anyone but an 
old prospector, he lost his hold. His skeleton was found 
months later by our own guide, William Bass, at the 
foot of the falls now bearing his name. Sheer preci- 
pices lead to the pool at the base of the cascade, and to 
reach It, we left our horses and entered a limestone tunnel 
Ingeniously worked in and out the soft rock, and thus 
threading our way finally reached the bottom, and stood 
exulting in the suddenly cool air, electric with white spray, 
falling Into the great pool below. Like the caves through 
which we crawled, the cliff behind the falls was of red 
limestone, not solid rock but like carved lace, or rather, 
like the Japanese wave symbol, which seemed to have 
frozen eternally when at Its crest. And this was covered 
with ferns and moss and bright flowers, while blue birds 
flashing over the pool In flocks were singing their joy at 
reaching this cool haven. 

Here was our bath de luxe. I am sure no king or 
courtesan ever found one more nearly perfect. While 
the guides explored another canyon, we swam to our 
hearts' content, cool for the first time in days. The white 




MOONEY'S FALL, HAVASUPAI CANYON, ARIZONA. 



THE GRAND CANYON 233 

lime bottom gave the pool a jewel clearness. Though it 
came to our shoulders it looked only a few inches deep. 
Spray-drenched, we swam as near as we dared to the 
great cascade, which set the pool dancing in eternal waves. 
When we finished our swim we were invigorated as if a 
dozen masseuses had spent the day over us. 

Our last night in this Eden known only to a few brown 
Adams and Eves, when the heat became too intense for 
sleep indoors, I took a blanket and spread it under the 
trees. The full moon made the little valley more of a 
Paradise than ever. I lay and watched the light climb 
the massive cliffs that wall in the canyon entrance, till it 
reached the two grotesquely shaped pillars surmounting 
either cliff. The Havasupai have a legend concerning 
these monoliths, so oddly perched that they command 
oversight of the whole village. They are not really rocks, 
but gods, — the tutelary gods of the tribe. One the Hava- 
supai call the Old Lady, while the other is naturally 
the Old Man. For centuries they have guarded their 
people. Yes, but the breath of scandal touches even gods, 
— and even gods of stone. For one morning, years ago, a 
chief of the tribe rose unusually early, — and saw, — don't 
let it go any further, although I had it very straight, — he 
saw the Old Man returning hastily to his rock. At four 
o'clock in the morning, mind you ! Easy enough to guess 
where he'd been. 

But I fell asleep watching, and when I awoke the Old 
Man and Old Lady were still sedately on their pillars. 
Well, that was a long while ago, after all, and gods will 
be gods. 



CHAPTER XVII 

FROM WILLIAMS TO FORT APACHE 

WILLIAMS," said the Old-Timer to us, as he di- 
rected us to that progressive but uninteresting 
little town, "when I first came west was a typical shoot- 
'em-up town, with thirty-six saloons; — thirty of them in 
tents," he added emphatically, as if this made a climax of 
inquity, I remarked later to Toby. 

"The drinking, I suppose, was more intense," she re- 
plied. 

"Owing to more frequent drafts," I retaliated. 

Williams, set in a sea of white dust, looked both mod- 
ern and harmless, as if to make up for its youthful wild 
oats by a humdrum middle-age. Numerous drug-stores 
had replaced its three dozen saloons, and a Sabbath 
calm reigned on its dusty streets. We bought gasoline, 
and went on, not over-pleased with Williams. We felt 
it did not live up to its early rakishness. But appearances 
count for very little after all. Not five minutes later, a 
small man driving a small car, with a large blond woman 
beside him, approached and signaled us. We saw he 
was excited, and she, though normally florid, was the 
color of an uncooked pie. 

My prophetic soul caused me to say, "Shall we stop? 
It may be a hold-up," when he called, "Stop ! stop ! We've 
just been held up, a mile back." 

"When?" 

334 



FROM WILLIAMS TO FORT APACHE 235 

"Five minutes ago." We had spent those same five 
minutes buying gasoline at Williams. "Canst work in 
the ground so fast?" I apostrophised our guardian angels. 
The woman broke in shrilly. "Two masked men with 
revolvers stood by the road. They took everything we 
had, then made for the woods." 

"Did you lose much?" 

"Nine dollars," said the little man. "If I'd had more 
they'd got it." 

When the shaken couple left, we debated whether to 
go ahead. Perhaps the masked pair awaited us in the 
road beyond. Finally deciding they would be no more 
anxious to meet us than we them, we hid our valuables, I 
In my hat and Toby under the floor. Before we finished, 
a Ford approached driven by two men of villainous ap- 
pearance enhanced by a week's beard, and criminal look- 
ing red shirts. Seeing us they wavered, slowed down and 
seemed about to stop beside us, then changed their minds 
and dashed past, looking at us searchingly. Their pecu- 
liar conduct and unprepossessing features made us certain 
that they were the thieves. Our long expected bandits 
had come, and had passed us for a little man in a flivver 
with nine dollars. We were to a certain extent relieved, 
I must confess. Still, when you go west adventuring, your 
friends expect you to be held up by outlaws, and you hate 
to disappoint them with an anti-climax. 

When we reported the incident at "Flag," the Flag- 
stafl^ans seemed wounded in their municipal pride. Noth- 
ing of that sort, they said, had happened for years, and 
asked if we had visited the Observatory. Flagstaff Is no 
longer a frontier town. I bought a hat there which was 
afterward admired in Boston, if that signifies anything. 



236 WESTWARD HOBOES 

The town is best known for its observatory, which we 
drove up a beautiful winding hill to view, and found it 
looked like any other observatory. There are some cliff 
dwellings overlooking a pretty little green ravine, called 
Walnut Canyon. Dominating all Flagstaff the crescent 
of cold San Francisco peaks looks benignly over half 
Arizona, lovely in their bold and serene silhouette. 

On the road between Holbrook and St. Johns, as we 
journeyed toward Apacheland, we stopped a few hours In 
the petrified forests whose fallen trunks line the road 
for miles. Whatever turned them to stone, at the same 
time burned the heart out of the surrounding country. 
Leprous looking erosions, sulphur colored and sickly 
white, make the only break in an absolutely flat landscape. 
An unbending road stretches miles without a change in its 
monotony, choking in alkali dust and twisting sandstorms. 
Beyond is the painted desert — bad lands which, but for 
the ethereal sunset colors tinting butte and mesa with 
unearthly glory, would be as unspeakably desolate as the 
rest. The forest Itself lies fallen in an alkali plain. Un- 
countable tons of these giant fragments, waist-high, per- 
fect to the last detail in the grain of the wood, the rough- 
ness of the bark, knot-holes and little twigs, cover the 
ground. The strange stone, which polishes like glass and 
cuts like diamonds, is nearly semi-precious, yet In this 
vicinity houses are paved with the blocks. We passed 
over a bridge whose foundation was a giant petrified tree. 
It was depressing, these acres and acres of stone trees, 
frozen in the height of their glory by the cruel Medusa, 
Nature. I felt the same pensive kinship of mortality 
with these trees one feels at Pompeii with the huddled, 
lava-encrusted bodies clutching their treasures. 



FROM WILLIAMS TO FORT APACHE 237 

"I wonder what petrified these here trees?" exclaimed 
a voice behind us. We turned. If I had not known the 
trees were petrified before her arrival I might have held 
her responsible. As she stood, she might easily have 
turned a whole continent to stone. She might have posed 
for Avoirdupois, minus the poise. She wore, in addition 
to her figure, a gayly striped silk sweater, high-heeled 
French slippers, silk stockings, a jockey cap and over- 
alls. Overalls, like boudoir caps and kimonos In Pull- 
mans, are the approved hiking costume of the new West 
for both sexes. Unfortunately, there was more of her 
to wear overalls than there were overalls to wear. 

We had seen many of her kind, always touring the 
country in a little rattly car, out for a good time, careless 
of looks, dressed In a motley of overalls, sunbonnets, 
middy blouses, regardless of age or former condition of 
dignity, sometimes driving, and sometimes delegating 
the task to a little man crowded up against the wheel ; — 
there is never more than one man to a earful of women 
and children. We were now in the heart of the sage- 
brush tourist belt, where motoring is not the sport of the 
wealthy, but the necessity of the poor. With bedding 
rolls and battered suitcases strapped to running boards; 
canteens, tents, chuck-boxes and the children's beds tied 
on with ropes wherever ropes will go; loaded Inside with 
babies, dogs and Pater and Materfamlllas, and outside 
with boastful, not to say sneering banners; these little 
cars serve for transportation, freight-van, restaurant and 
hotel. Bought second or third hand, they rattle the 
family off on vacations or business, and at the journey's 
end are sold third or fourth-hand. At night no garage 
or hotel for them, but a corner, a secluded corner if they 



238 WESTWARD HOBOES 

arrive early enough, in the municipal parking grounds. 
Here with frank gregariousness they exchange confi- 
dences with other sage-brush tourists, while Paterfamilias 
mends the dubious tires and tinkers with the weak spark 
plug, and Materfamilias cooks supper over an open fire. 
Then they drape a tent or a mere canvas over the car, 
take a lantern inside, and one by one undress, blissfully ig- 
norant that their silhouettes are shamelessly outlined on 
the canvas. As these municipal camps were a bit too noisy 
for people who loved sleep as did Toby and I, we usually 
sought the open country, but we loved to walk through 
the grounds, and enjoy their sociability. The rich and 
haughty, we thought, would not be half so bored with 
travel if they earned their delights as these sage-brushers 
do. Fords have replaced prairie schooners, and Indians 
are less interested in one's scalp than one's pocketbook, 
yet overland travel still furnishes adventure, as any one 
of the tow-heads we met from El Paso to Gallup will tell 
their grandchildren fifty years hence. But you must leave 
behind limousine and liveried chauffeur, forswear pal- 
ace hotels, and get out and rub elbows with folks. The 
real sage-brush tourists care nothing for "side." Proudly 
flaunting their atrocious banners, they patch their tires to 
the last ribbon, and wash their dirty babies in public. 

Occasionally there are exceptions to these happy-go- 
lucky pioneers. One such family we met at the very ebb 
of their fortunes. They were migrating to Texas, and 
midway, their hoodless ramshackle engine, tires, and 
pump had collapsed like the one horse shay. We filled 
their canteen, which had also leaked dry, pumped their 
tires with our engine, and offered what road advice we 
could, with the remains of our lunch. At last, after re- 



FROM WILLIAMS TO FORT APACHE 239 

peated cranking the man got the wheezy engine started, 
and the woman, like Despair In a calico wrapper, leaned 
forward and took up her task of holding down the engine 
with her hand, protected by a black stocking. Poor shift- 
less folk, wherever they settled eventually, it is fairly 
certain their luck did not Improve. 

We were bound by easy stages for a long-sought goal, 
a seductive and elusive province of which even native 
Arlzonans knew little. Yet it was the little they told 
which enticed us. 

"I've not been myself to the White Mountains," one 
old-timer after another would say, "but I've always heard 
how they are the prettiest part of the state. Everything 
in the world you'd want, — mountains, rivers, a world of 
running water, trout that fight to get on your bare hook, 
big game, mountain lions and such. I've always aimed to 
go sometime." 

Our "sometime" had come, after long waiting for the 
twelve-foot snows to melt which covered the road till 
May. Through pretty, little irrigated towns high in the 
hills, we reached at sunset a district far different from the 
burnt aridity we passed at noon. Lakes were linked to 
each other under green hills like ours at home. We 
looked across ridges and long Irrigated pastures, and 
rode through fields blue with iris, and groves of gummy 
pines and the hugest white birches I ever saw. The roads 
were next to impossible. We bumped violently over an- 
noying thank-you-marms past Cooley's ranch, former 
home of an officer who married an Apache woman, and 
whose sons now own half the beautiful valley, and have 
built a lumber camp that is fast converting these forests 
Into history. At ten o'clock of a full and weary day, we 



240 WESTWARD HOBOES 

reached the reservation of the White River Apaches, 
situated on the lovely river of that name. A few miles 
below, where the river forks between rolling hills, is a 
cavalry station, relic of the days when the Apache was 
the terror of Arizona. 

We had to beg Uncle Sam once more to put us up for 
the night. Not too gracious — rather grumpily, in fact, — 
he granted permission, notwithstanding that in that re- 
mote and innless region, his is the only resort travelers 
have, and the one to which they are always directed. 
They pay a stipulated sum for lodging and for meals ; — 
nevertheless the average government agency is not the 
most hospitable place in the world. 

Only a few Indians were visible next morning on the 
reservation. A crowd of men hung round the village 
store at Fort Apache, or loafed under the trees in the 
square. A pretty girl on horseback smiled at us, con- 
scious that her necklace of brass bells and celluloid mir- 
rors made her the best dressed debutante in Apacheland. 
A very intelligent lad directed us to the trout stream 
where we hoped to see the trout fight for the privilege of 
landing on our bare hooks. The Apaches are round- 
headed Indians, rather sullen we were told, with staring 
round eyes, more stocky than the lithe Navajo, better 
able to account for themselves than the Papagoes ; though 
in the past of ceaseless warfare, it has been give and 
take, the Apaches losing as often as the other tribes. In 
a land teeming with fish and game, they have become 
lazy, and the beautiful craftwork for which the tribe was 
formerly noted Is seldom attempted by the younger gene- 
ration. Their industry does not compare with that of the 
Hopis, who are constantly weaving baskets, baking pot- 




A TROUT STREAM IN THE WHITE MOU'NTAINS, ARIZONA. 



FROM WILLIAMS TO FORT APACHE 241 

tery, or wresting meager crops from the land. Being the 
last tribe to take the warpath, not so many years ago, they 
are closely watched against another outbreak. 

Bright and early we drove up the river fork, until what 
road there was ceased, and became a flight of steps, and 
our progress was made In standing jumps. The old lady 
outdid herself, and when her nose bumped against rocks 
too abrupt to ride over, actually gathered herself together 
like a hunter, and leaped over them. At last when the 
hilly trail began to cave In on the outer side, we aban- 
doned the car and walked a mile farther to our camp, 
near a cottage whose owners were away. 

It was a beautiful glade we had selected for camp, so 
peaceful and remote that we seemed at the earth's end. 
The White Mountains were Indeed all they had been 
painted. Sunny fields leading to distant peaks, a glade 
with dimpling brown brooks, fallen logs, tiny cascades, 
baby whirlpools, sunlit shadows tempting to trout, a green 
tangle of summer overhead, and the delicious tang of 
pine-sweetened mountain air, ought to please the most 
exacting. We lacked only the trout, for, relying on their 
abundance, we had traveled light for food. Flecks of 
white In the brook showed this abundance no empty prom- 
ise. Occasionally a shining body leaped In the air and 
splashed back Into the brown water. Not the fourteen 
pound monsters of the northern lakes, these, but little 
brook trout, of a hand's length, meltlngly sweet to the 
taste. Our mouths already watered. Untangling our 
tackle, we started to dig for worms. We had been pre- 
sented with a pailful of bait, but in the excitement of get- 
ting off had left It at the reservation. 

The sun was just low enough to fleck the river with 



242 WESTWARD HOBOES 

warm pools and shady eddies. Soon Toby exclaimed 
with pleasure, the pleasure finding a worm gives only 
when one intends to fish. She had bisected a fat, tempt- 
ing rascal, assuring one trout, at least. When the sun 
was an hour lower, and it was getting a trifle chilly for 
fish to bite well, I unearthed another, a long, anasmic, 
dyspeptic victim, which gave us renewed courage. Either 
worms were scarce or trout fishers had dug them all. We 
decided to give it up, and fish with what we had. 

It took much less time to get rid of our worms than 
It did to find them. Undoubtedly the trout fought to get 
on our hooks, but by the same token they fought still 
faster to get off again. We doled out Mutt and Jeff, as 
we dubbed our treasures, inchmeal to the rapacious brutes, 
but we were not proof against their popularity. 

"This is the last piece," I said to Toby. And, of 
course, when she dropped It into the water, there came a 
timid tug, and a rush. Victorious Toby pulled out a 
trout, and threw him back in disgust. He was all of two 
inches long. 

It was four and after when we returned to our trenches 
and started digging again. Then a splash, and through 
the speckled shade a cavalry oflUcer came riding. We 
called after him. 

"Any worms in this place?" 

"Any what?" His horse was carrying him further 
downstream. 

"Wor-rums?" 

His voice came faintly back, — "Dig near the water." 
We dug near the water for another half hour. Then we 
gave It up, and hot and discouraged made for the empty 
cabin on the hill, hoping someone might have returned 



FROM WILLIAMS TO FORT APACHE 243 

and could advise us. The house, though open, and invit- 
ingly adorned with beautiful Apache baskets, a rarity 
since the Apaches became too lazy to make them, was as 
empty as before. The tinkle of the telephone which sud- 
denly sounded, emphasized its loneliness. 

Toby and I had the same idea, but always more active, 
she had the receiver down while I was crossing the room. 

A forest ranger twenty miles away was making his ac- 
customed round by 'phone, tracing the spread of a forest 
fire whose smoke we could dimly see. 

''Hello!" he said, "Hello!" 

"Hello," replied a female voice, in cultured Cambridge 
tones. "Where do you dig for worms?" 

But a forest ranger learns to be surprised at nothing. 
Instantly his reply came back, "Look under the stones at 
the river's edge." 

"Thank you," said Toby, hanging up the receiver. 

Thanks to his advice, before sundown we caught a 
dozen dainty brook trout, beauties all, which, when 
dipped in cracker crumbs and lemon juice, and fried in 
butter over hot coals, were as good as they were beauti- 
ful. 

It was the first time I ever fished by telephone. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE LAND OF THE HOPIS 

IN Starting for Hoplland, that little island set In the 
ocean of the Navajo's country, we had anything but a 
definite idea whether we should arrive at our destination, 
but we hoped for the best. We were used by now to 
steering our craft by desert signs, as a navigator steers his 
ship. The desert continually Impresses one with its 
resemblance to the sea, — opalescent, glittering in the sun, 
its sands ribbed as by waves; sky and horizon meeting 
in unbroken monotony, and mesas floating on its surface 
like purple Islands. We were dazed by its vast distances 
and always changing beauty. We made for great pro- 
montories looming up In a sea of sand; tacked and veered 
to the next landmark; skirted reefs of rock; and looked 
for windmills, arroyos and buttes to guide us as a mariner 
does for lighthouses and buoys. For us who had always 
known the restriction of well-marked, prim highways, 
it was a keen pleasure to rely on our newly awakened 
primitive faculties. For the first time we sensed the 
reality of expressions that the protected artificiality of 
cities had made valueless before. For the first time water 
was not a commodity which Inevitably flows when a tap 
is turned; but the difference between life and death. 
Old Bible phrases became real in their vivid poetry. 
"Cattle upon a thousand hills," — we passed them every 

day. "The shadow of a great rock in a weary land" 

244 



THE LAND OF THE HOPIS 245 

we learned to avail ourselves of from the pitiless heat 
with deep gratitude. For a brief time, we had become 
as pastoral and elemental as David or Jacob. 

Keams Canyon we reached at sundown, — a tiny, 
jagged little place, oddly charming, with hills packed be- 
hind it and a few government buildings striding the can- 
yon. In that easy-going land, those who directed us had 
taken for granted that we should be looked after, regard- 
less or perhaps because of the fact that Hopiland has 
neither hotel nor boarding house in its confines. The 
traveler must camp or depend on private hospitality, 
which Is not, probably because of frequent abuse, as un- 
grudging as it Is reported to be. We could have camped, 
but desert touring Is exhausting, and by nightfall we 
seldom had strength left to attempt It. We were dog- 
weary from the heat and bad roads, but no hospitable 
door opened to us, as we had been assured they would. 
The agent was away, and we were directed from house 
to house, no Inmate wanting us himself, but each thinking 
his neighbor might. At last a man more solicitous than 
the rest thought the minister might take us In. And 
he did, most cordially. 

Here and there on the reservations we heard talk 
among traders and old settlers against the missionaries; 
— they were officious, or lazy, or ignorant of Indian psy- 
chology, or bigoted. Yet by far the finest hospitality 
we met on Indian reservations was from missionaries, 
and altogether we gained a general Impression that they 
were mainly disinterested and sincere. Their work is 
far from remunerative, and they are resigned to constant 
discouragement. 

After serving us with supper, the missionary Invited us 



246 WESTWARD HOBOES 

to a prayer meeting in his parlor. Four Indians and two 
babies comprised the prayer meeting. Slicked up and 
awkward, their faces shining with soap, they proved once 
more that clothes make the man. An Indian who is ter- 
rifying and dignified in beaded buckskin is only stolid in 
overalls and necktie. To the tune of a parlor melodeon 
they dismally sang "Brighten Up the Corner Where You 
Are," though it was obvious from their expressions and 
the wails of the babies that if it were left to them the 
Corner would stay just as it Was. I could not help won- 
dering, with all respect to the sincerity of our host, what 
advantage there was in offering Billy Sunday's elemen- 
tary twaddle to a people whose language is so subtle that 
a verb paradigm often has 1500 forms. But surely, when 
the Indian is taught to discard his own arts and crafts and 
culture, let us give him substitutes of an equally high 
standard from our viewpoint. Pater might pass over his 
head, but Poor Richard would not, for his homely com- 
monsense would find an echo in the Indian's own native 
philosophy. Probably the most valuable thing the mis- 
sionary and his wife had to offer they thought the least 
of, — their warm friendliness and human interest in each 
convert and backslider, their folksy neighborliness with 
red people, and the unconscious example of their straight- 
forward lives. 

Keams Canyon is only eleven miles from the first mesa, 
and our car was soon climbing dunes of sand toward 
the base of the long, bold mesa on which Walpi is built. 
From below we could hardly discern the tiny villages 
perched on the cliff, so perfectly were the buildings fused 
with the gray rock itself, both in color and mass. Even 
the black specks which marked the position of doors and 



THE LAND OF THE HOPIS 247 

windows seemed like natural crevices in the rock. Mont 
St. Michel is the only other place I know where archi- 
tecture is so completely one with its foundations. 

As we climbed to Polacca, the Indian hamlet at the 
base of Walpi, the ruts became so deep that at the last 
we were buried to the hubs. A dozen little Indians, gig- 
gling and shy like boys the world over, ran to help us 
push, but their help was of little value. All our ques- 
tions, though they are taught English at school, passed 
over their heads, and their replies were limited to "Yes" 
or "No," shouted so hoarsely that we jumped involun- 
tarily whenever they spoke. For an hour we chopped 
brush in the broiling sun, backed and shifted gears till the 
wheels caught at last, and we plunged up hill to the 
trader's. He told us we were the first of a dozen cars 
stalled there that week to extricate ourselves. 

The village seemed deserted as we passed through. 
Finally we met with a red-haired man with a vague chin 
who advised us to camp near the spring, to which he prom- 
ised to direct us. 

"Everybody in town seems to have gone to the next 
mesa," commented Toby. 

"They have," said he, while a sheepish expression 
came over his aimless face. "They're holding an in- 
quiry into a white man's fighting an Indian. You can't 
lay a finger on these Hopis, they baby them so. Fact is," 
he said in a burst of confidence, "I'm the man that did it. 
A buck called me something I wouldn't stand from no 
one, so I jest lit into him. I was goin' to kill him, but I 
kinder changed my mind, — and slapped him instead." 

He looked as if his mind would make such changes. 
He went on with much violence of expression to give his 



248 WESTWARD HOBOES 

opinion of the white settlers on the reservations, espe- 
cially the missionaries, — "they stay here so long they git 
all dried up, and jest nachally hate themselves and every- 
body else." 

His annoyance against the world was so large that we 
made haste to leave him. It was too hot to champion 
anyone's grievances, and his seemed dubious. I felt 
sorry for the Indians who had to deal with him. Indian 
reservations, as we saw them, always seemed to harbor 
a certain proportion of white vultures who were not cal- 
culated to increase the Indian's gratitude or respect for 
the Great Father, and some of them, unhappily, were in 
government employ. 

We engaged a little boy to act as our guide to the 
villages on the mesa in which he lived, who thought more, 
we afterward discovered, of getting a ride in an auto- 
mobile, — the delight of all Indians — than of his duties 
as guide. Not many white drivers, I dare say, have been 
up that rocky and primitive road which leads to the 
ancient village of Walpi. The natives told us we could 
do it, so we started. Two roads led to the wagon trail. 
Our little guide, who was as tongue-tied as most Indian 
children, was for directing us toward one, when a fat 
woman, hung with jewels, and clad in a cerise wrapper, 
leaned over a fence and argued the point with him. Polac- 
ca sees more strangers than any other Hopi village, 
owing to its position, and the importance of the snake 
dance which takes place there every September, yet visi- 
tors were rare enough for us and our car to be objects of 
interest. So we followed her advice and took the other 
road, and a few rods further, came to a dead stop in the 
deep beach sand which surrounds the town. It was only 



THE LAND OF THE HOPIS 249 

the third or fourth time it had happened, so that we did 
not despair, though we did not relish the thought of an- 
other half hour's digging and shoving under the burning, 
sickening heat of the desert sun. Our guide took the 
inevitable quarter hour for reflection common to Indians, 
then he summoned his juvenile playmates, and they cut 
bush for us, and tramped it into the bad places until we 
were able to go on sooner than we expected. We 
branched on to a road, roughly paved with great rocks, 
and rutted by the cart wheels of three centuries, like 
the dead streets of Pompeii. The nose of the car began 
to point skyward, and climbed up, up, while the desert 
dropped away from us. To go over that road once is an 
experience, but I should not care to repeat it often. It 
wound up the side of the mesa, with sometimes a low 
parapet to keep us from dropping off, and sometimes 
nothing at all. A boulder now and then or rough ledge 
cropping across the road would tilt the old lady at an 
uncomfortable angle. Heights and climbs over danger- 
ous switchbacks had become commonplaces of travel by 
now, and we had gained confidence from learning the tre- 
mendous flexibility of which a motor car is capable. We 
were willing, without taking credit for extraordinary 
courage, to undertake almost any road wide enough for 
our tracks. People who confine their driving to perfect 
boulevards and city roads have no idea of the exhilarating 
game motoring really is. My wrists were like iron, and I 
had developed a grip in my fingers it would have taken 
years to acquire otherwise. No grade seemed too steep 
for the "old lady," — how we relied on her pulling 
power! Much of the climb we accomplished on high, 
though at the final grade, where she fairly stood on end, 



2SO WESTWARD HOBOES 

we shifted to low. And at last we were In the street of 
Walpi, looking down on a blue-gray sea several hundred 
feet below us, and surrounded by a group of interested 
natives, who with great presence of mind had filled their 
hands with pottery to sell. 

What is commonly called Walpi is really three towns, 
Walpi, Sichomovi, and a Tewa village called Hano. 
The people in the last village, which is the first as you 
enter the towns from the road, have little traffic with the 
Walpi people, but the division line is well nigh invisible 
between Sichomovi and Hano. Beyond the second town 
the mesa narrows, and over a slender tongue of rock, 
part of which has fallen away in recent years during a 
severe storm, we looked across to the most interesting 
village of Walpi. 

Against an intense blue sky it blocked its irregular 
outline high above the delicate desert, with gnarled sticks 
of ladders angling out from the solid mass of buildings. 
The crazy but fascinating stone houses merging into one 
another, now swallowing up the road and later disgorg- 
ing it, made with their warm sandstone color an effective 
background for the people who came and went in the 
streets, or sat in the doorways in silver and scarlet. The 
housetops were lively with children and women in native 
costume, or, more comfortably and less picturesquely in 
the ginghams and plaid shawls beloved of Indians. The 
squat houses, the women bending their necks to great 
water jars, the desert, all suggested a new-world Pales- 
tine. 

Compared with Walpi, the first two villages are neat 
and tidy, their interiors whitewashed clean, and little 
pots of flowers almost invariably on the window sills. 




THE VILLAGE OF W.ALPL 




OLDEST HOUSE L\ WALPI. 



THE LAND OF THE HOPIS 251 

The Indian love of flowers impressed us everywhere. 
House after house we entered, to receive a soft smile of 
welcome from the old grandfather squatted on the floor 
dangling a naked brown baby, or from the grandmother, 
busy with a bowl of clay which she shaped and painted 
with quick fingers, while she talked to us through her 
English-speaking daughter. 

In these Hopi houses, ropes of dark crimson jerked 
beef buzzing with flies fill the hot room with a fragrance 
loved only by the Indians; strings of wampum, worth 
sometimes two horses and a burro, rugs, native woven 
and of the gaudy Pendleton variety, coats, overalls, dried 
herbs and peppers hang from convenient beams. In 
another corner, in the older houses, is a row of two or 
three metate bins, for grinding corn, with a smooth round 
stone lying beside it. If one arrives during the season, 
he can witness the corn grinding ceremony. A Pueblo 
woman, loaded with beads and silver, stands behind each 
bin, which is filled with varied colored grains. In the 
corner an old man sits, beating the tombe in rhythmical 
strokes and singing the Song of the Corn Grinders, to 
which the women bend back and forth in perfect time, 
rubbing their flat stones over the corn. No man except 
the singer of the ceremonial song can be present in the 
room while this grinding is in process. To violate this 
rule is a grave offense. 

Most of the houses have a small Mexican fireplace in 
the corner. At the side of some rooms is a loom with 
a half finished rug on it, but this is becoming a rare 
sight. The Hopis, who originally were expert weavers 
and taught their art to the Navajos, gradually relin- 
quished it to the Navajos, who were able to get a superior 



252 WESTWARD HOBOES 

quality of wool. Now the Hopis trade their baskets and 
pottery to the Navajos for their rugs, or buy the less 
beautiful but more gaudy commercial rugs from traders. 

Being a native of Hano, our little guide hesitated to 
take us into Walpl. It was evident that no great love 
was lost between the two villages, for a reason we learned 
later, so we preceded him across the uneven, narrow 
tongue of rock which led to the tip of the mesa. The 
late afternoon sun lighted the stony pile with glory, 
and cast rich, violet shadows the length of the houses. 
It was almost impossible to disentangle the stairs of one 
house from the roof of another. Stairways terraced 
into the mortar of the houses led to roofs, and ladders 
pointed still higher. 

Somehow Walpi reminded me of the little hill town of 
Grasse, and the old parts of San Remo, on the Riviera. 
There was the same tolerance toward live stock in the 
narrow, unevenly paved streets; there were the same 
outside stairways, and roofed-in alleys and houses tum- 
bling on each other, and looking into each other's mouths; 
the same defiant position on the height, watchful of 
enemies, the same warm stucco and brightly painted door- 
ways. Even the dark, velvety eyed children bore out the 
resemblance to Italy, as they slouched against a wall, as 
Italians love to do. A small army of children in one 
or less garments was watching us from the parapets; 
we pointed the camera at them, and snapped. When the 
film was developed only one child remained, — the rest 
had ducked. 

We met with less hospitality in Walpi than in the other 
two villages on the mesa. Doors were tightly closed, for 
the most part. A few inhabitants, mostly old women, 



THE LAND OF THE HOPIS 253 

let their curiosity overcome their pride, and called out 
to us. One woman was baking pottery in an oven edging 
the lane which was Walpi's Main Street. She had buried 
it, and was raking sheep-dung over it to insure its being 
burned the peculiar reddish brown which the Hopis prefer 
in their pottery. A tiny burro wandered about at will, 
and the usual array of dogs yapped at us. At the great 
rock, the most conspicuous identifying mark in Walpi, 
which bisects the narrow street, and is so shaped that 
in a Northern country it would have to be called Thor's 
Anvil, my eye was attracted by little sticks bound with 
feathers in the crevices of the rock. I pulled one out, 
and asked our guide what they were. 

"Don't know," he shouted, in the tone he used when 
speaking to us, perhaps thinking it more official. His 
face was stolid and stupid. Of course he knew. They 
were, as we afterward learned, the prayer sticks used in 
the Hopi ceremonies for rain. 

Across from Walpi, looking west over the desert, is a 
low long mesa. There the Indian youths go to hunt wild 
eaglets, to be used in the Snake Dance ceremonies. We 
saw a group of men, Indians and white, clustered with 
great interest about a rough box made of wooden slabs. 
As we came nearer, curious, we saw them jump quickly 
back, wary and respectful. A young eagle, with a heavy 
chain on one ankle, angry and ruffled stood at bay, its eyes 
gleaming red, its beak wide open and the feathers on its 
neck standing straight out. It was not a creature to tam- 
per with, even chained as it was. Never have I seen any- 
thing so angry in my life. It was the embodiment of 
Fury, of rage that, silent and impotent as it was, stays 
with me ever now. How far we Easterners have traveled 



254 WESTWARD HOBOES 

from the life that was a commonplace to our ancestors! 
Here was the creature so native to our country that its 
likeness is on our national coin, yet outside a zoo it was 
the first eagle I had seen. I only recognized it as an 
eagle because its feather-trousered legs looked so like the 
St. Gaudens designs. 

Between the little painted prayer sticks in the big 
rock at Walpi, the long mesa on the horizon, and the 
captured fighting creature in the cage at Polacca, is an 
interesting connection. Rain, rain, is always the prayer 
on every desert Indian's lips. When the spring freshets 
are finished, and the land lies exhausted under the metallic 
glow of an August sun, life itself hinges on breaking the 
drought. Because the eagle is the bird which reaches 
nearest to Heaven, and hence is most apt to carry his 
prayer to the gods, the Hopis make excursions to that 
distant mesa where eagle's nests are still found, and bring 
back a young eagle. This they keep in captivity until 
the time approaches for the Snake Dance, which is really 
a dance for rain, the snake being the ancestor god of 
the Walpi people. Then they kill the eaglet, not by a 
gun or an axe, but without shedding its blood, they gently 
stroke its neck until it is numb and in a stupor. Then 
they wring its neck, and pluck out the downy feathers 
to wing their prayer sticks to the gods above. 

Inextricably woven with the legends of the Hopi, and 
especially those inhabiting Walpi, is the Snake myth, 
which began when a chief's son living north of the Grand 
Canyon decided to learn where the Colorado River went. 
His father put him in a box, and thus he reached the 
ocean, where the Spider Woman (the wise-woman of 
Hopi mythology) made him acquainted with a strange 



THE LAND OF THE HOPIS 255 

island people who could change at will into snakes. Pass- 
ing through all the various tests imposed on him, with the 
help of the Spider Woman, the young man was given a 
bride from the Snake people. They wandered until they 
came finally to the foot of Walpi, and here the Snake 
woman gave birth to many children, all snakes. Some 
of these bit the Hopi children; therefore the chief's son 
and his wife returned all the snake offspring to her peo- 
ple. On their return the Walpi folk permitted them to 
live on top of the mesa, and after that time the woman's 
children took human form, and were the ancestors of the 
Snake clan today. 

The Hopi were originally migratory people moving 
slowly down to their present home from the north. Prob- 
ably the cliff dwellings in Colorado and the southern Utah 
country, and certainly in the Canyon du Chelly, were built 
by them. After Walpi had been settled, other tribes came 
to Sichomovi. Meanwhile the Spanish monks had dis- 
covered Tusayan, and had thoroughly disciplined and in- 
timidated the unhappy people. Like the parent who gives 
his son a thrashing, they did it for the Hopi's good, 
but their methods were tactless. Great beams a foot 
thick and twenty long may today be seen in the old 
houses in Walpi, which these sullen Hopis dragged from 
San Francisco mountains a hundred miles away, under the 
lash of the zealous monks. The Walpis seem to have a 
morose nature, which one observes today in their attitude 
toward visitors. Perhaps the regime of the Spaniards 
cured them forever of hospitality. They joined enthu- 
siastically in the rebellion of 1680. When every Span- 
iard was killed, the Walpis went back contentedly to 
their reactionary ways. 



256 WESTWARD HOBOES 

The Hano people are of the Tewa tribes, some of 
whom still live near Santa Fe. On the invitation of the 
WalpI, they migrated to Tusayan, but the WalpI treated 
them abominably, refusing to share their water with 
them, or to allow them on their mesa. When the Hano 
asked for food, the WalpI women poured burning por- 
ridge on their hands. When the Hano helped defeat the 
Utes they were allowed to build the third village on top 
of the mesa. They still speak a different tongue from 
the WalpI, though they lived for centuries within a quar- 
ter of a mile of them. The reason Is interesting, if true. 

"When the Hano first came, the WalpI said, 'Let us 
spit In your mouths and you will learn our tongue,' and to 
this the Hano consented. When the Hano moved to the 
mesa they said to the WalpI, 'Let us spit In your mouths, 
that you may learn our tongue,' but the WalpI refused, 
saying It would make them vomit. Since then, all the 
Hano can talk HopI, and none of the Hopis can talk 
Hano." 

However that may be, our little guide was uneasy when 
we crossed Into WalpI, and exchanged no words with 
Its inhabitants, who as they passed gave him uncordial 
looks. 

As we left WalpI, it was almost twilight. It had been 
a burning hot day, but the coolness of evening at high 
altitude had settled on the sizzling rock. Shadows that 
in midday had actually been, not purple, but deep crim- 
son, had lengthened and become cool blue-gray. We care- 
fully steered our car, loaded with HopI pottery, down the 
rocky and uneven wagon trail. At times, the ledges pro- 
jected so high in the road that we heard an unpleasant 
scraping noise of loosening underpinnings. We used our 




SECOND MESA, HOPI RESERVATION. 




A HOTAVILLA SYBIL. 



THE LAND OF THE HOPIS 257 

brake constantly, and braked with our engine at the 
steepest turns. At last we reached the sandy stretch at 
the bottom, and with the advantage of a downgrade, 
managed to get through it safely. 

Still below us and as far as eyes could view, we were 
surrounded by the desert. Now, as the sun sank lower, 
and the shadows increased, it was no longer a dazzle of 
gold and silver, as at noonday. All the colors in the 
world had melted and fused together, a wonderful rose 
glow tinged rocks and sky alike. Distant, purple mesas 
floated on the surface of the desert. The sun was a 
golden ball tracing its path to the horizon. A sea-mist of 
bluish gray hung over the desert, and undulating waves 
carried out the semblance of the ocean. The great rock 
of Walpi seemed like the prow of a ship, or a promon- 
tory against which the waves beat. Here In the crowded 
East, it is hard to write down the satisfying emotion the 
tremendous vastness created in us. In this world of rocks 
and sand, something infinitely satisfied us who had been 
used to green trees and shut in spaces all our lives. We 
did not want to go back; the desert was all we needed. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE FOUR CORNERS 

FORTY-SECOND street and Broadway Is probably 
the most crowded spot in the United States. The 
least crowded is this region of the Four Corners, where 
Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona come to- 
gether. Almost as primeval as when Adam and Eve were 
bride and groom, it fits no accepted standards; too vast 
and too lonely for the taste of many, too arid and glar- 
ing with sunshine to be called beautiful in a conven- 
tional sense, it differs from the ordinary "landscape" as 
Michelangelo from Meissonier, Here, in a radius of 
seventy-five miles are a collection of wonders strange 
enough to belong to another planet. The Navajo and 
Piute possess this land. Southeast is Zuni with its 
highly civilized people. Southwest are the Grand Can- 
yon, the Havasupai Canyon, the desert promontories of 
the Hopis and the petrified forests. Northeast is Mesa 
Verde National Park. Silence-haunted Canyon du Chel- 
ley lies on the edge of Arizona, and just over the line 
in Utah is a land of weird and mighty freaks, monoliths, 
erosions, tip-tilted boulders a thousand feet high, and 
natural bridges, of which the greatest is the Rainbow 
Bridge. 

It was the lure of the Rainbow Bridge that had gath- 
ered our party together in the immaculate dining-room of 

El Navajo at Gallup, one morning in late May. We al- 

258 



THE FOUR CORNERS 259 

ready felt a certain distinction bestowed on us by our 
quest. Not eighty white people since the world began 
had viewed that massive arch, one among whom, named 
Theodore Roosevelt, had written most respectfully of the 
difficulties of the trail. There were six of us, who had 
originally met and planned our trip in Santa Fe ; the 
guide, Toby, and I, a brother and sister from Ohio 
named Murray and Martha, and the Golfer, a man of in- 
destructible good-nature. 

"Did you get my balls?" inquired the last named, as he 
stepped from the train. 

"Did you bring your clubs?" I asked, simultaneously. 

The questions arose from a pact made in Santa Fe. 
Now few are free from the vanity of wishing to do some 
feat nobody has yet accomplished. Without it, Colum- 
bus would not have discovered America, Cook and Peary 
would not have raced to the North Pole, Blondin crossed 
Niagara on a tight-rope nor Wilson invented the 
League of Nations. Ours was a simpler ambition than 
any of these, having its origin in the Golfer's passion for 
improving his drive at all times and places. We had 
hoped, at Santa Fe, to be the first white women to visit 
the Bridge, having heard a rumor that none had yet done 
so, but our guide disillusioned us; several women had 
forestalled us. 

"I wish we might be the first to do something," said 
Toby, who in fancy had seen herself in a Joan of Arc 
attitude planting the blue and white flag of Massachusetts 
on the pinnacle of the Bridge. 

"We might put a golf ball over it," I suggested, watch- 
ing the Golfer polish his brassie. "I don't believe that's 
been done." 



26o WESTWARD HOBOES 

"Guess it hasn't," laughed the guide. "Walt till you 
see the Bridge." 

"Won't do any harm to try," said the Golfer. 

Then Murray and the Golfer and the guide began dis- 
cussing whether a golf ball could or couldn't be driven 
over the arch. The guide bet it couldn't, and to make 
things interesting, we took him up. The Golfer modestly 
deprecated his skill, but thenceforth he was observed 
practising his drive on every occasion. 

We were to drive to Kayenta, and take horses from 
that point to the Bridge, a hundred miles further on. 
While the guide packed the car, we took in the sights of 
Gallup. Thriving though unlovely, facing the dust of 
the desert, it has a stronger flavor of the old West 
than most railroad towns, for roads from remote regions 
converge into its Main Street. Old settlers from all four 
states rattle in over the dusty trails, no longer on horses, 
but in the row-boat of the desert, a Ford. They gather 
at the Harvey lunch-room, and see the latest movies. 
The Santa Fe thunders by with its load of eastern tour- 
ists. Gentle-eyed Zunis wander in from their reservation 
to the south. Occasionally cowboys in blue shirts and 
stitched boots ride in, or a soldier in khaki from the 
Fort. The shops are hung with the silver every Navajo 
knows how to fashion from Mexican dollars. We saw a 
group of fat chiefs decked in their best, their henna 
faces etched with canny lines, fingering and appraising 
the chunks of solid turquoise and wampum chains on each 
other's necks as a group of dowagers would compare 
their diamonds. 

We started at noon, our faithful car sagging like a 
dachshund under a thousand pounds of bedding, tents, 



THE FOUR CORNERS 261 

food and suitcases, In addition to six passengers, — a load 
which was a terrific test on these roads. As we left Gal- 
lup, passing the "Haystacks" and other oddly shaped 
landmarks, the road became an apology, and later an In- 
sult. High centres scraped the bottom of the weighted 
car, so that our spare tires acted as a brake, and had to 
be removed and placed inside, to form an uncomfortable 
tangle with our legs, wraps and baggage. But in spite 
of cramped positions we were hilarious, knowing we had 
actually started on this long-planned adventure, and 
that before us were eighteen days of companionship, with 
unknown tests of our endurance, our tempers and pos- 
sibly our courage, riding hard, sleeping hard, living a 
roofless existence, without benefit of laundry. 

An arid place In the scorching sunlight of lunch-time, 
the desert toward late afternoon became a dream of pas- 
tels, isolated mesas floating above Its surface in rosy lilac, 
its floor golden, washed with warm rose and henna tones, 
with shadows of a misty blue, under a radiance of re- 
flected sunset light. 

When the color faded, mesas and buttes stood out 
sharp and black. The desert was no longer a pastel but 
a charcoal sketch. As vision disappeared our sense of 
smell was heightened. Freshened in night dew after a 
parched day, a million tiny flowers seemed concentrated 
Into a penetrating essence, with the aromatic sage strong- 
est of all. Our headlights pierced a gloom miles long. It 
was ten hours before we reached the twinkle of Chin Lee 
lights, where we were glad to find shelter and beds. 

On the next day we averaged exactly nine miles an 
hour In the eighty miles to Kayenta. In a jolty hand- 
writing I find my auto-log for that day, "Rotten road. 



262 WESTWARD HOBOES 

High centres, deep arroyos, many ditches. Sand. Part 
of road like painted desert." 

It was a treacherous country to drive in. There were 
no maps, no sign-posts. Most of the day we met only 
Navajos, speaking no English. From the few white 
men we met, we would get some such instructions : "Bear 
northwest a ways, follow the creek till it forks; a way 
down on the lower fork you pass a mesa, then bear east, 
then west." This over a distance of eighty miles! It 
was worse than Texas, where we were expected to get 
our bearings by Uncle Henry ! 

Sometimes our course was deflected by a swollen river, 
or the wind had buried our tracks with sand. Some- 
times the settlement we sought to guide us would be com- 
pletely hidden by a dip in conformation of the country. 
Sometimes a mirage brought under our very noses a 
group of buildings really miles avv^ay, with a river be- 
tween us. Occasionally a vicious chuck-hole jarred our 
engine to a standstill. Once our guide lost his bearings, 
and for nearly thirty miles we skipped lightly cross- 
country, taking pot-luck with the mesas and washes and 
sage thickets we encountered, finding our way only by a 
range of hills on our west. 

I have always wondered what would have happened 
if Toby and I had attempted that journey alone, as we 
first intended. This Navajo desert was the wildest, most 
unfrequented district we saw from Galveston to Boston. 
Only a Dunsany could give an idea of its loneliness, its 
menace, its weird beauty. Our guide had the western 
sense for general direction, and had been to Kayenta 
before, yet even he lost his bearings once. To us, it 
was a tiny spot easily obscured by the tremendous wastes 



THE FOUR CORNERS 263 

on all sides. Yet I should like to know if Toby and I 
could have managed it alone. 

Something about the country, and in the swart faces 
of the supple Navajos on horseback, their flowing locks 
banded with scarlet, reminded me of old pictures of 
Thibetan plains and the fierce Mongolian horsemen with 
broad cheek-bones, slant eyes and piercing gaze. Kayenta 
is a gateway, like Thibet, to the Unknown. It is a fron- 
tier, perhaps the last real frontier in the States. Only 
Piutes and Navajos brave the stupendous Beyond. 

Backed up against oddly-shaped monoliths and orange 
buttes are half a dozen small adobe houses, among them 
the vine-covered house and store of John Wetherell, the 
most famous citizen of Four Corners. A thousand sheep 
fill the air with bleatings like the tin horns of a thousand 
picnickers, as they are driven In from pasture by a little 
Navajo maid on a painted pony, her rope around her 
saddle horn. A stocky Indian in leather chaps gallops 
down to the corral, driving two score horses before him. 
Wagons come creaking in, laden with great bags of wool. 
A trader from the Hopi country or Chin Le rattles in to 
spend a few days on business, or stay the night in the 
hospitable adobe house. Government officials, visiting or 
stationed here, saunter in to chat or get information. 
Groups of Navajos bask in the sun. Every passing, 
every stir of life on the great expanse, is an event to be 
talked over from many angles. 

At the Wetherell's, we found homeliness, a bountiful 
table, and marvel of marvel, the bath-tub furthest from 
an express office in the States. A few miles further north, 
all traces of civilization drop out of sight, and you are ^ 
living the Day after Creation. 



264 WESTWARD HOBOES 

John Wetherell, though supple as a lank cowpuncher 
and fifty years young, is already an "old-timer." Henry 
Ford put him and his kind, as fine as this country ever 
bred, into the past generation, overnight. In this youth, 
he and his brothers rode down an unknown canyon hunt- 
ing strayed cattle, and discovered the cliff dwellings of 
Mesa Verde, now the best known of all. From that 
moment, discovering cliff dwellings became a passion 
with the Wetherells. Shard heaps yielded up their treas- 
ures to them, and lonely canyons disclosed human swal- 
low's nests hitherto uncharted by the government. From 
Colorado, John Wetherell moved to Kayenta, where he 
gained the confidence of the Navajo as few white men 
have ever done. 

In this achievement — and a difficult one, for the 
Navajo is a wary soul, — he was greatly helped by Mrs. 
Wetherell, who possesses an almost uncanny understand- 
ing and sympathy for the Navajo that make her a more 
trustworthy Indian student than many an ethnologist 
learned in the past, but little versed in Indian nature. 
She speaks their tongue like a native, and has their con- 
fidence as they seldom give it to any of the white race. 
They have entrusted to her secrets of their tribe, and 
because she keeps their secrets, they reveal others to her. 

When the "flu" swept across the desert, it was par- 
ticularly virulent among the Southwest Indians. They 
died like flies in their hogans, in carts on the road, and 
beside their flocks. Babies hardly able to talk were 
found, the only living members of their family. An 
appalling number of the tribe was lost. Government 
medical aid, never too adequate on an Indian reservation, 
could not cope with the overwhelming attack. Mission- 



THE FOUR CORNERS 265 

aries forgot creeds and dogma, and fought with lysol 
and antiseptic gauze. The "medicine men" shut the doors 
of the hogans, built fires to smoke out the bad spirits, 
filled the air with noises and generally made medicine 
more deadly to the patient than to the devils that pos- 
sessed them. Mrs, Wetherell and her family hardly 
slept, but rode back and forth through the reservation, 
nursing, substituting disinfectants and fresh air for "med- 
icine," took filthy and dying patients to her own home 
till it became a hospital, and prepared the dead for burial. 

Parenthetically, from this epidemic comes a piquant 
example of the way fact can always be bent to substan- 
tiate creed. Soon after the "flu" had reaped its harvest, 
a fatal distemper struck the horses and cattle on the 
reservation. Following the human epidemic, it was 
cumulatively disastrous. But the Navajo could explain 
it. In the old days, when a chief or warrior died, his 
favorite horse was buried beside him, so that he might 
ride properly mounted into the happy hunting ground. 
To the Indian mind it was only logical that when the 
influenza swept away hundreds of men, as many horses 
should go with them to Paradise. 

When the United States entered the world war, Mrs. 
Wetherell saddled her horse, put food and a bedding 
roll on a pack-mule, and went far into the interior of the 
reservation, wherever a settlement of Navajos could be 
found. Most of them had never heard of the war. She 
told them of the government's need for their help, till 
she aroused them from indifference to a patriotism the 
more touching because as a race they had little reason for 
gratitude toward a too-paternal government. Out of 
their flocks they promised each a sheep, — no mean gift 



266 WESTWARD HOBOES 

at the war price. When the "flu" epidemic interrupted 
her work, she had already raised $3000 among a people 
as far from the Hindenburg line, psychologically, as the 
Eskimos or Patagonians. 

To this lady of snapping black eyes and animated 
laugh came rumors from her friends the Navajos of an 
arch, so sacred that no religious Indian dared ride under 
it without first uttering the prayer specially designed for 
that occasion, handed down from one generation to the 
next. No white man, presumably, had reached the Rain- 
bow Arch, a day and a half beyond the sacred Navajo 
mountain, whose thunder peak dominates the country 
even to the Great Canyon. The location was told her 
by a Navajo, and the first expedition, led by a Navajo, 
with Mr. Wetherell as guide, reached Nonnezosche Boco 
(Bridge Canyon) in August, 1909. The party consisted 
of Prof. Byron Cummings, then of Utah, now of Ari- 
zona University, Mr. Douglas, of the government 
Federal Survey, James Rogerson, and Neil Judd, of the 
Smithsonian Institute, the restorer of the cliff ruins of 
Beta-Takin. 

Already a controversy over who really "discovered" 
the Rainbow Bridge has been waged, and zestfully con- 
tested. To Douglas went the official recognition, with 
the privilege of naming the arch, upon his own claim. 
Prof. Cummings, while giving Douglas the official right 
as discoverer, is the first white man who saw the bridge. 

Our own party, the sixteenth to visit the Bridge since 
its discovery, waited a day at Kayenta while we equipped. 
Our letters had not arrived in time to announce our 
coming, and the horses were still at Oljeto, at winter 
pasturage, and had to be driven down, Saddles needed 



THE FOUR CORNERS 267 

mending and food and bedding had to be collected. 
While the guides worked, we lay in the cool of the 
Wetherell's grassy lawn, — the only grass in a hundred 
miles, — or bargained for Navajo "dead pawn" silver in 
the trading store. The Navajo is a thriftless spender, 
and against the day when he can liquidate his debts by 
selling his flocks, he pawns his cherished turquoises and 
wampum. By a government law, he is given a period of 
grace to redeem his heirlooms, after which time they 
go to the trader, who may not sell them for more than 
he paid the Indian, plus a small percentage. 

We took clandestine snapshots of the timid Indians, 
who lost their timidity when we were the focus of their 
curious eyes and guttural comments. Indian speech is 
always called guttural; the Navajo tongue really deserves 
the adjective. The Navajo not only swallows his words, 
but sounds as if he did not like the taste of them. They 
had a favorite trick of looking our party over, while one 
of them expressed in a few well chosen consonants a 
category of our defects, which set the observers into 
guffaws and shrieks of laughter. Yet they say the Indian 
has no sense of humor. 

One old crone in a garnet velvet jacket sat in the 
doorway of the store, and with contempt looked us three 
women over In our khaki riding breeches and coats. 
Then she sneered in Navajo through her missing front 
teeth, "Do these women think they are men?" 

We had forgotten the warning given us at Chin Le to 
wear skirts, so as not to outrage the Navajo sense of 
modesty. This in a land where suffrage never needed 
an Anthony amendment, — where the son, from antiquity, 
has taken his mother's name, where the man does the 



268 WESTWARD HOBOES 

indoor task of weaving while the woman devotes herself 
to the larger business of tending flocks, and property 
becomes the woman's at marriage, so that when she 
divorces her husband, as she may for any or no reason 
at a moment's warning, he is obliged to walk out of his 
— I mean her — hogan, wearing only what he had on his 
wedding morn. So far as I could learn, the man has 
only one privilege, — that after marriage, he must never 
see his mother-in-law. "Nas-ja!" they cry ("Become an 
owl;" i. e., look blind) when the two are in danger of 
meeting. 

Yet this old crone, who had so many privileges, gave 
us and our outrageous costumes such a look as Queen 
Victoria might have given Salome at the close of her 
dance of the seven veils. Wearing the breeks in spirit, 
she could make a point of forswearing them in the flesh. 

The handsome Navajo lads who slouched over the 
huge bags of wool before the trading store were more 
tolerant. The boldest let us photograph them, giggling 
as they posed, and were pleased when we admired the 
exquisite turquoise and silver bracelets on their brown 
arms. They were lithe and full of sinewy strength and 
steely grace, lounging in their gay velvet jackets and 
chaparrals. 

And all through the day, regardless of the burning- 
glass heat of the sun, Murray and the Golfer, to the 
delight and amusement of the whole post, red and white, 
patiently improved their drive by lofting over the wind- 
mill which Roosevelt had instituted for the Navajos. 
Three brown children on horseback acted as caddies. 
Mr. Wetherell quizzically watched a shot go wild over 
the seventy foot windmill. 



THE FOUR CORNERS 269 

"Think you're going to put a ball over the Bridge?" 

"I'm going to try to," said the Golfer modestly. 

He chuckled. "Wait till you see it, young fellow." 

In answer, the Golfer sent up a ball that clove the 

heavens in twain. And then the entire population of 

Kayenta spent the rest of the day on their knees, hunting 

in the sage-brush. 



CHAPTER XX 

RAINBOW BRIDGE 

IT was as exciting as a well-fought football game to 
watch the horses, when at last they straggled down 
from Oljeto, to be cajoled and subsequently roped. Hav- 
ing spent the winter away from humans, they had for- 
gotten our self-willed ways, and developed wills of their 
own. Though bony from a hard winter, they had plenty 
of fight left in their mud-caked hides. We all sat on 
the corral fence and joyfully watched a Navajo herder 
tobogganned over rocks and cactus, at the end of a taut 
rope, while an old white horse, pink from a bath in the 
creek, looked over his shoulder and laughed, as he kept 
the rope humming. The Navajo must have thanked 
fate for his leather chaps, which smoked with the fric- 
tion. The horses were a gamble. Our unexpected ar- 
rival left no time for them to be fed and hardened for 
the trip. We had to take them as they were. From the 
fence we made bids for our choice. Our amateur judg- 
ments were received with respectful attention. Toby 
wanted a little horse with flat sides and an easy trot. I 
asked for the biggest horse they had, knowing from 
former experience that on a long, hard trip a big horse 
is less likely to tire, and a long trot is easier on the rider. 
Martha wanted a pony with a lope, but, speechless with 
disgust, was given a little white mule called Annie. She 

broke off a branch of yucca blossom for a whip, and with 

270 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 271 

this held upright and her demure look, she reminded us 
of the popular picture of the Holy Child riding to 
Jerusalem. 

At about four In the afternoon, — an outrageous hour, 
— we started across a long draw and over flat lands, not 
especially Interesting, except for the wealth of wild 
flowers beneath us. Our party was Imposing, with our 
two guides and two helpers. Our five pack horses ambled 
discontentedly along as pack animals will do, as If they 
had a grudge against somebody and meant when the 
opportunity came to release It. Our Navajo who looked 
after the horses was named Hostein Chee, which Is to 
say. Red Man. He was not so named for his race, but 
because, for some mysterious reason that may or may 
not have Involved Mrs. Hostein Chee In malicious gos- 
sip, like Sally in the cowboy ballad he "had a baby, and 
the baby had red hair." 

Hostein Chee rode his horse like a centaur. His rid- 
ing costume was moccasins, overalls, an old sack coat, 
and a mangy fur cap with a band of quarters and dimes, 
his most cherished possession. He wore an armlet of 
turquoise and mellow carved silver. The Navajos of 
former days used these ornaments on their left wrist to 
steady their arrows as they aimed them at Utes or 
Apaches, but those they make today with raised designs 
and encrusted gems are only for display. 

Once we passed a small camp of Navajos, and at a 
word from Mr. Wetherell, Hostein Chee rode off, and 
a quarter of an hour later rejoined us with a dressed 
sheep hanging to his saddle horn. A sharp knife is slung 
from the belt of all Navajo shepherdesses, and their 
dexterity in handling it is marvellous. 



272 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Ahead of us the pack horses jogged reluctantly, as if 
they knew they were In for It. The trail we were to make 
has the reputation of being difficult If not dangerous in 
Its rough footing, widely separated camps and lack of 
water. Yet the beginning was uneventful enough. For 
a dozen miles we wound through Marsh Pass, with the 
typical desert scenery of hot, burnt plains, rolling hills 
and low cliffs, and dry river beds. Then we turned at 
right angles into Segl, or Lake Canyon, winding east to 
west between bright pink sandstone bluffs, outlined in 
whimsical shapes against a clear gold sky. The green, 
grassy valley abounded in the sweet flowers of the desert, 
a strange contrast to the bare, stark and forbidding 
rocks hemming it In. 

We persuaded our horses to a trot, for we still had 
miles to go. At twilight, when the heat suddenly changed 
to a frosty cool, we turned into a side canyon whose nar- 
row walls rose higher as we progressed. The horses 
slipped and tumbled In the dark. Unexpectedly, Toby 
and I found ourselves struggling alone up a path which 
became more precarious every minute. Our horses 
finally refused to advance, and dismounting, we saw that 
we had mistaken for a trail a blind shelf of the bank 
high above the stream. The ledge narrowed till there 
was scarcely room to turn around; the horses' feet slipped 
among the loose boulders. We could see little but the 
blazing stars overhead. We could hear nothing; our 
party had ridden far ahead without missing us. At last 
a faint call drifted to us, and soon a guide appeared to 
our rescue. Turning down the stream-bed we made our 
way after him to camp, a mile further, where the others 
were already dismounted, and the pack unloaded. 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 273 

Tired and ravenous, we rested on our saddles while 
the horses strayed off, munching the fine, sweet grass. If 
Mr. Wetherell was tired he showed no sign, though since 
morning he had been busy. While the other men un- 
packed bedding and arranged camp, he dug a deep pit, 
placing burning logs within. The pit finished, he buried 
the mutton that a few hours ago was a happy sheep, and 
covered it lightly. Before we could believe it possible, 
it was cooked. Steaming and crisp it was sliced and 
distributed, and the mutton which had been a sheep 
became as rapidly a remnant. 

The day had been sultry, but we were glad now of the 
roaring fire. It sent a glare on the face of the red cliffs 
on the opposite bank, not unlike El Capitan of Yosemite 
in contour. We looked and forgot them again, to look 
again and be surprised to see them in place of the sky. 
Not till we threw our heads far back could we see their 
edge. The pleasant sound of the little stream came inces- 
santly from below. His silver glittering in the firelight, 
Hostein Chee sat smoking a cigarette, like a Buddha 
breathing incense. I went to him, and tried to bargain 
my IngersoU wrist-watch for his armlet. I let him hear 
it tick. 

"Wah-Wah-Tay-See, Little Firefly,'' I said, in the 
Indian language of the poet, pointing out the radium 
hands. "Light me with your little candle. I give you 
this?" 

Hostein Chee accepted it with a child-like smile. 

"And you give me this?" I said, touching his armlet. 

"No good," said Hostein Chee, drawing back in alarm. 
But I had difficulty in getting my watch back. Each 
night of the trip thereafter, we went through the same 



J 



274 WESTWARD HOBOES 

game, the Red Man accepting my watch with gratifica- 
tion, but showing the same surprised obstinacy when I 
tried to take the armlet, and polite regret at having to 
return my watch. In the end, he lost the name bestowed 
on him by a derisive community, and became Wah-Wah- 
Tay-See for the rest of the trip. 

Sleep that night was more romantically staged than 
under ordinary circumstances. The cold, glacial tang of 
high altitude nipped us pleasantly. The cliffs shut us in, 
not forbiddingly but protectingly. The firelight was cozy 
and homelike. We made a little oasis of human com- 
panionship in this wide primeval solitude, but our 
spirits were high enough not to feel our isolation. 
Rather, we had an increased elation and sense of free- 
dom. What myriads of people, jostling each other 
every day, never get more than a few feet away from 
their kind! We had a sense of courage toward life 
new to us all. The mere fact of our remoteness helped 
us shake off layers and layers of other people's person- 
ality, which we had falsely regarded as our own 
and showed us new selves undreamed of. We laugh, at 
the movies, at the frequency with which the hero goes 
"out there, away from all this" to "find himself." Yet I 
think everyone should, once in a while, leave routine and 
safety behind, with water that runs from faucets, beds 
under roofs, and food coming daily from baker and 
grocer, and policemen on every corner. Too much 
security stales the best in us. 

It seemed the middle of the night when we were 
wakened by the sound of galloping hoofs. From our tent 
window, we saw the morning sky painting an orange band 
against the cliffs, and Hostein Chee driving the outfit up 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 275 

the ravine. On his pony's saddle hung the carcass of a 
second sheep, for from today we were to leave fresh 
meat behind us. Even the Navajos and Piutes seldom 
wander far into this hinterland of nowhere. We snatched 
a few minutes more of sleep, guiltily, while through our 
door came sounds of preparation for breakfast. We 
shivered and piled on more coats. At last the crackle 
of the fire promised warmth; we crawled out, washed in 
the stream, and found breakfast ready and the packers 
impatiently waiting for tents and gunnysacks. 

"Look," said somebody, pointing. Mr. Wetherell 
smiled. To our right, sheltering us with its six hundred 
feet of red wall rose a cliff, curved half-way up like an 
inverted bowl, and blackened with streaks where water 
had once run. The same water had carved the bowl, 
and had it worked awhile longer it would have bored 
through the cliff and made a natural bridge. As it was, 
it formed a simple but perfect shelter for a large cliff 
city, so completely the color of the cliff that but for the 
black window holes, we should never have found them 
for ourselves. 

With all the joy of discoverers we speedily climbed 
the precipitous bank to the narrow shelf on which the 
ancient city was built. Strung together on their precari- 
ous ledge like beads on a necklace were rows of rooms, 
compared to which a kitchenette in a New York apart- 
ment would be spacious. Above them were second and 
third stories, the ceilings long ago fallen, and only a few 
decayed pifion vegas to show where they had been. On 
one building the tumbled masonry exposed a framework 
of willow wattles. A thousand years before, perhaps, 
some Indian had cut the saplings fresh from the brook 



276 WESTWARD HOBOES 

where we had just bathed. The great stone slabs of the 
altars and the cedar beams must have been dragged up 
from below, — a stupendous work of patient human ants. 
In the fine, crumbly floor dust, we found Innumerable bits 
of pottery, painted in the early red, black and white, and 
fragments of the still earlier thumb-nail. Toby tirelessly 
collected armfuls of them, and tied them in bandana 
handkerchiefs. The place had hardly been excavated. 
We pawed the dust, each believing we might discover 
some souvenir the Smithsonian would envy us, and 
ethnologists refer to wistfully in their reports, yet some- 
how, we did not. But many interesting things came to 
light, feathers twisted together into ropes, obsidian 
arrow-heads, sticks notched by a stone adze, grinding 
stones such as the Hopis use today, and the altar stones 
found in each apartment. No wonder their builders wor- 
shipped, living so near Heaven. 

These ruins, called Beta-Takin, or "Hillside House" 
were well named. Above was only the deep blue sky, 
framed in the smooth red arch that roofed these swal- 
lows' nests. Below were steep slopes of crumbling sand- 
stone, the glowing flowers near the river, and beyond, 
castellated peaks of bold outline. I climbed with caution 
to the furthest tip of the crescent town, and my traitor 
knees began to crumple like paper. I had suddenly be- 
gun to wonder, at the wrong moment, whether any cliff 
dwelling babies had ever fallen over that edge. 

Hostein Chee was finishing his last diamond hitch 
when we returned to camp. Our horses were changed; 
some who yesterday had been mere pack animals were 
promoted to the rank of saddle horses. The Golfer had 
drawn a powerful black mule, and had mounted him 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 277 

jauntily. The Golfer was new to horses, but anyone 
could ride a mule. Just then, as he bent to adjust a 
stirrup, the familiar jingle of the departing pack and the 
music of Hostein Chee's alien profanity came to those 
long ears. Forgetting his recent rise in station, the mule 
leaped eagerly forward to join his mates. Briar and 
bush did not stop the pair; they tore downhill over boul- 
ders and through thickets. Young alders slapped the 
Golfer in the face, but he hung on until the mule, in 
despair at seeing demure Annie trot out of his vision, 
took the stream at a leap. At that moment, those who 
were ahead say that the black mule caught up with Annie. 

The Golfer had lost interest in the amorous pursuit, 
and was sitting up picking the cactus thorns out of him- 
self when we arrived. 

"What happened?" we asked, in the way people will 
ask questions. 

"I'd thought I'd get off," answered the Golfer. 

But thereafter, he and the black mule became firm, if 
not fast companions. 

The gorge we had passed through in the dark we 
retraced to find full of color. Great aspens bordered the 
heights, while the river bed was full of flowers. As we 
came to the opening the canyon broadened, and the red- 
dish cliffs became higher and took on strange shapes of 
beasts and humans. A whole herd of elephants carved 
in the sandstone seemed guarding the entrance into Segi 
canyon, meticulously complete, even to white tusks, 
wrinkled trunks and little eyes, as if these had been the 
freehand plans the Creator of elephants had sketched on 
the wall before he began to work them out according to 
blue-print. 



278 WESTWARD HOBOES 

We worked through and across Segl canyon until we 
stood on a ledge of rock, and looked over miles of rose, 
purple and stormy blue, toward corrugated walls high 
enough to fence in the world. And then began a descent 
of two hours, while the sun blazed up in this shadeless 
waste of rocks. We scrambled over boulders bigger 
than our horses, dragging the reluctant animals after us 
on the rein, ready to dodge quickly if they slipped. A 
few lizards glided under cover as we advanced, the only 
living creatures in sight, though from the heights came 
occasionally the melancholy story of a ring-dove or a 
hoot-owl. The trail clung to sheer walls, its switchbacks 
rougher and at times far steeper than the Grand Canyon 
trails. Since its discovery ten years ago, little has been 
done to improve it, necessarily, because of its extreme 
length and the fact that it is not situated in a national 
park. For these reasons, it will probably never lose its 
primitive wildness. 

We lunched under a few spreading junipers, where 
water in muddy rock basins was to be found. The sun 
was low when we started again, for in that country it 
does not pay to ride through the heat of mid-day. The 
region, broken no longer by gigantic canyons, softened to 
a dull monotony of sage and rolling hills. Camp was 
already made, when at evening we rode into a small, 
semi-enclosed valley at a short distance from a second 
cliff-town, under an arched recess of rock high above us. 
While the men unpacked, Martha, Toby and I found 
a tiny pool yielding a basin full of water, but ice-cold, 
it soothed our weary bodies wonderfully. About all we 
need for our physical selves in this world is a bath after 
dust and heat, food after hunger, sleep after weariness, 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 279 

warmth after cold, and freedom from worry, — and camp 
life completely satisfies for a time, because these simple 
desires are both intensely stimulated and gratified. Our 
campfire warmed the chill night air, and gave us an hour's 
relaxation and gayety. But sleep could not be held off 
long, and at nine, we all retired to our tents under a 
thicket of junipers. 

These cliff dwellings yielded Toby magnificent speci- 
mens. Behind camp lay a small hill mostly of pottery 
fragments. She attacked it and single handed soon re- 
duced it to a hummock. The bandana would hold no 
more, and her sweater and pea jacket bulged at the 
pockets, and when I opened our pack I found crumbled 
pottery mingling with our toothbrushes. 

The next day brought us into more dramatic scenery. 
Once more we toiled up and up through an unimaginably 
vast and lonely country, whose barrenness of rock and 
sage was softened by a wilderness of flowers, of new and 
strange varieties. The cactus blossoms, most brilliant 
and fragile of desert flowers, with the texture of the 
poppy and the outline of the wild rose, ranged from the 
most subtle tones of golden brown, tea rose color and 
faded reds to flaming, uncompromising rainbow hues. 
We passed a bush with white waxen flowers like apple 
blossoms, called Fendler's Rod, and another with ma- 
hogany branches, smooth to feel, with fragrant yellow 
bloom; blue larkspur in profusion, the Indian paint- 
brush in every shade from scarlet through pink and cerise 
to orange and yellow. Wild hyacinths began to appear 
in the cooler, tenderer shades of early spring, and a new 
flower, very lovely, called penstaces, in pink and purple. 



28o WESTWARD HOBOES 

The mariposa lily of southern Arizona appeared here as 
waxy cream and twice as large as we had ever seen it. 

Once out of Piute Canyon, we camped at the Tanks, 
a series of waterholes worn in a dry river bed of solid 
rock. A group of pirions sheltered our camp, but before 
the tents were fairly up a downpour of rain drove us 
wet and uncomfortable to huddle together in one tent. 
The horses slanted into the driving storm with drooping 
heads and limp haunches. Saddles and provisions were 
hastily covered with Navajo rugs. Through it all Hos- 
tein Chee in overalls and drenched sack coat moved 
about his business with neither joy nor sorrow. He 
showed no animation until over the great roaring fire 
our supper was cooked, and he could once more, with 
bland and innocent smile shake the bag of sugar into his 
coffee, murmuring "Sooga." 

The sheep killed by the Navajos had not died in vain. 
Again it formed the staple of our meal. With each 
appearance it seemed to lose some of its resiliency. 
Mutton, most unimaginative of meats, with the rain 
drizzling on it was less inviting than ever. Nor was it 
improved by being set down on the ground, where a 
shower of sand was unwittingly shaken into it by each 
person who went to the fire to fill his tin plate. Still we 
chewed on, and in the end besides the exercise, got a 
little nourishment. We did not care ; we wanted to eat, 
and get back to our tents out of the downpour. It was 
one of those days all campers know and enjoy — after- 
ward. 

I woke toward morning and peered through the tent 
window to see dawn banding the windy sky. Against its 
dramatic light, stood Hostein Chee, the Red Man, beside 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 281 

a campfire blazing shoulder high. His body slanting 
back, his face frozen to exalted calm, he gazed fixedly at 
the glory of the sky. His inscrutable nature seemed 
touched and wakened. I called softly to Toby. 
"Look — he is saying a prayer to the dawn!" 
We looked reverently. The white men were sleeping, 
but the Indian kept his vigil. He raised both arms above 
his head, removed his hat, — and scratched vigorously. 
This done, he repeated the process wherever he felt the 
need. Toby's awed interest turned to mirth, mainly at 
my expense. Yet even engaged in so primitive a gesture 
as scratching, Wah-Wah invested it with the stately grace 
we noticed in his every move. Though I knew I should 
not, I watched him make his toilet, fascinated. He 
removed the trousers he slept in, and in which we daily 
saw him accoutred, revealing (I had turned away in 
the interim) an under pair, similarly tailored, of a large 
black and red checked flannel. He scratched thoroughly, 
took off his vest, scratched, and then dressed. Then he 
blew his nose as Adam and Eve must have, and shouted 
"De-jiss-je !" 

That, as nearly as I can spell it, is the only Navajo 
any of us managed to learn. Mr. Wetherell so fre- 
quently addressed Hostein this way that we thought it 
was his name, and called him by it, even after we learned 
that it meant "Light a fire." The little jest always 
brought a silent smile to the face of the Navajo, and he 
would mimic our mimicry. We christened an unnamed 
canyon for him De-jiss-je Boco, where we lunched at 
noon, and cached part of the pack till the return trip. 
Here was a delicious stream, running between sandstone 
rocks, into which horses and all put our heads and 



282 WESTWARD HOBOES 

drank. The sun steamed upon the land of rocks until 
the heat made us droop, and our horses, poor beasts, 
were rapidly wearing down from the trail. Only 
pifions, with hardy roots gripping the red wastes of rock, 
and thorny cactus, grew in this vast echo-land. Rocks ! 
I could not have believed there were so many in the 
universe. It looked like the Pit out of which the gods 
had taken material to build the world, or the abyss where 
they threw the remnants afterward. 

For the first time we saw purple sage, whose scent is 
indescribably sweet. This rare variety is found only in 
this region. Its leaf is dark green and differently shaped 
from ordinary sage. We were nearing great Navajo, 
whose bare stark head topped all other hills from Mt. 
Henry in Utah to the San Francisco peaks in the south. 
Soon we were in the lee of it, climbing beside it, but 
closer and closer to its heights. 

De-jiss-je looked at the cloudless sky, and suggested it 
might rain. To my surprise the others agreed. The sky 
was velvet blue and the air as dry and sparkling as ever. 
Yet we had hardly rounded the shoulder of Navajo 
when thick, broken clouds shrouded it in terrible gran- 
deur, and the wind swirled them against that rocky 
mass. The storm broke immediately in wildest fury, 
and we saw the giant in its proper surroundings, storm 
wrapped and terrible. I never saw a more majestic 
storm in more titanic setting. Low waves of prairie, 
stretching for miles, were broken here and there into 
strange monoliths and grotesque needles, around which 
the lightning played sharp and short as a whip snapping, 
— rose-colored, deep green. The sky turned purple-blue, 
cut and slashed by gashes of blinding white. Grayed by 




RAINBOW BRIDGE TRAIL. 
Near Navajo Mountain, whose bare, stark head topped all other hills 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 283 

sheets of rain, the red rocks took on a sulphurous look. 
Far off to our right a rainbow canyon opened, almost as 
vast and quite as brilliant as the Grand Canyon of 
Colorado, reaching to the horizon. 

Though the storm cracked above our heads, it was 
too beautiful and too awful to fear. We whipped on 
our slickers. In a second they were drenched, and 
streams were running to our saddles and soaking us. 
Toby, protecting her camera with one hand, and her 
person from the banging of a bag of pottery, wearing 
the slicker the cow had chewed short, was quickly 
drenched, and rode in dejected silence. Ahead, the 
helper, whose thin shirt streamed rivers, shouted in glee, 
and drove on the stumbling pack-beasts with variegated 
profanity. The guides took the onslaught of the storm 
unmoved, dripping like male Naiads. Sometimes the 
thunder smashed so near it seemed as if our horses had 
been struck, sometimes it cracked on the cliffs beside us. 

The scenery became increasingly dramatic. We were 
out of the pinon, and riding through nothing but granite 
and sandstone. An hour passed, while we huddled un- 
comfortably, fearing to move lest a rivulet find a new 
and hitherto unwet channel on our bodies. Then as 
suddenly as it began the storm ceased, and just in time, 
for we were nearing the crux of the trail, — Bald Rock. 
Even Roosevelt described this pass as dangerous. The 
storm had increased the danger. Five minutes more of 
rain, and the rocks would have been too slippery to cross; 
as it was, we barely kept our footing. 

Bald Rock is a huge dome of solid granite, bordering 
a precipice several hundred feet deep, overlooking 
tangled and twisted crags. Crossing it was like crossing 



284 WESTWARD HOBOES 

the surface of an inverted bowl. Worn smooth by ero- 
sion, the only semblance of foothold it offered was a 
seam a few inches wide near the edge. With the dome 
polished by rain, it was not easy to keep both footing and 
nerve. Our tendency was to move cautiously, when the 
safest way was at a jog trot, though the mental hazard of 
the drop at the edge made the latter course hard. Even 
the bronchos shared our caution. We naturally had dis- 
mounted, though the intrepid Hostein Chee rode his 
horse part way across. The horses dug their hoofs in 
hard, and even then they slipped and scrambled about 
helplessly. One balked, and another fell several feet. 
For a moment it looked as if his bones would be left to 
whiten in the chasm below, but goaded by the Navajo 
he regained his feet, and, trembling, crossed safely. 

Beyond came a still worse spot, — a narrow ledge, with 
cliffs on one side shouldering one toward the edge. Here 
the horses were halted until blankets and armfuls of grass 
could be placed along the slanting ledge. In all, we were 
half an hour passing Bald Rock. Though this is the 
worst bit of trail on the way to the Bridge, and enough 
to give one a little thrill, there is nothing to dread under 
ordinary conditions. Nevertheless, I should not like to 
cross Bald Rock after dark. 

To our left, beyond masses of smooth, marvelously 
contorted sandstone rose white cliffs, seared and ghostly, 
and beyond them, far reaches of mountain, with Navajo 
king of all. Clouds and mist encircled its slopes, but 
the peak rose clear above them into a thunderous sky. 
We kept the grand old mountain in sight for several 
miles, then dipped into a small and lovely valley, full of 
flowers and watered by a winding stream. This was 




CROSSING BALD ROCK. ON RAINBOW BRIDGE TRAIL. 

The worst bit of trail on the way to the bridge. 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 285 

Surprise Valley, famous in the movies as the scene of a 
thrilling tale of a man and woman walled in for years by 
one boulder pushed to block the only entrance. It is a 
pity to spoil the thrill, but I could not see how any one 
boulder, however large, could block all exit from this 
valley. Nevertheless its seclusion and unexpectedness 
make it a delight. The inevitable cliffs surround it in a 
red circle, and once within, a stranger could look for 
hours for the trail out. 

Thus far, the trail had been not only beautiful, but 
climacteric, and from this point to the great arch it was 
entirely outside one's experience. We had to recreate our 
sense of proportions to fit the gigantic land. I felt as if I 
had been shipwrecked on the moon. We who started 
feeling fairly important and self-satisfied and had become 
daily more insignificant, were mere specks in a landscape 
carved out by giants, — a landscape of sculptors, done by 
some Rodin of the gods, who had massed and hurled 
mountains of rock about, twisted them in a thousand fan- 
tastic figures, as if they had been mere handfuls of clay. 
Against the prodigious canyons down which our tired 
beasts slowly carried us, we were too small to be seen. 
Nonnezoche Boco, — "Rainbow Canyon," in the Navajo, 
— ^brought us into an ever narrowing pass with terra-cotta 
walls rising thousands of feet on every side, and a tur- 
bulent stream, much interrupted by boulders, at the bot- 
tom. Sometimes we threaded the valley floor, and some- 
times mounted to a shelf along the edge. Finally, when 
it seemed impossible for Nature to reserve any climax 
for us, we looked to the left, — and saw an anticlimax. 
We had been straining our eyes straight ahead, each 
eager for the first sight of the Bridge, the mammoth 



286 WESTWARD HOBOES 

bridge, highest In the world. As we crossed the canyon, 
looking down Its length we saw a toy arch nestled among 
the smooth cliffs, like a mouse among elephants. 

Not till we had wound down the trail overlooking the 
river and leading under the bridge, not till we dismounted 
under the buttresses of the arch, and saw that they them- 
selves were young hills did we get an Idea of its majesty. 
Our Navajo walked around It, for no good Navajo will 
pass under the sacred arch unless he knows the prayer 
suitable to this occasion. We followed Hostein Chee, 
and camped on a slope on the other side. From this 
angle the bridge appeared stupendous, towering above 
cliffs really much higher, but seeming less by the pers- 
pective. Unlike so many of Nature's freaks, It required 
no imagination to make it look like an arch. Symmetri- 
cal and rhythmic of outline, with its massive buttresses 
in beautiful proportion to the rest, it spans the San Juan, 
which, cutting through the narrow canyon, curves about 
to form deep pools into which we lost no time in plung- 
ing, after our hot and nearly bathless journey. 

Whoever called it a bridge misnamed it, for It bridges 
nothing. Before seeing it we had ambitions to climb to 
the top, and walk across, and while I daresay we should 
all have gone if any one of us had Insisted on attempting 
it, we may have been secretly relieved that nobody in- 
sisted too hard. It means a stiff climb negotiated with 
ropes, up an adjacent cliff. From the level top of this 
cliff one works around to a monument rock near the south- 
west end of the arch where a single plfion grows from a 
niche. A rope is swung from the cliff above, fastened 
in the pinon, and over a twenty-foot gap, at a height of 
three hundred feet and more above the rock-strewn 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 287 

river, one jumps to the shelving arch of the bridge. 
Returning is even worse than going — I believe only eight 
people have ever mounted the bridge. 

The Golfer meanwhile had reached the tee of his 
ambitions, with two dozen balls and his trusty brassie. 
We came on him at the edge of the tumbled river, cast- 
ing a doubtful eye up the rough slopes and crag-strewn 
course. 

"Bunkered, by gosh," we heard him say. 

"If you don't mind a little climb," said the guide, "I 
think we can fix you all right." 

Accordingly we stuffed our pockets with golf-balls, 
while the Golfer tied the remainder to his waist, and 
began to climb one of the smooth cliffs to the right of 
the arch, with the understanding that whoever had good 
courage might go on to the top of the bridge. The last 
lap of the climb brought us to a ledge which went sheer 
in the air for about twenty feet (It seemed like two 
hundred), without visible means of support. But noth- 
ing daunts an Old-TImer. Ours twirled his rope, las- 
soed an overhanging shrub at the top of the ledge, and 
shinnled up like a cat, twisted It twice about the shrubs 
and then around his wrists, and one by one, each accord- 
ing to his nature, — but not like a cat, — we followed. 

Toby, who Is a reincarnated mountain goat, scrambled 
up with careless abandon. Murray took it without com- 
ment. Martha, suddenly stricken with horizontal fever, 
was yanked up bodily. When it came to my turn, I got 
halfway up without trouble, but there the thought struck 
me that Mr. Wetherell was a dreadfully peaked man 
to be the only thing between me and the San Juan river. 
I wished that he had sat still In his youth long enough to 



288 WESTWARD HOBOES 

fatten up a bit. I called to him to sit heavy, and he called 
back to straighten my knees and keep away from the 
cliff. My knees, however, will not straighten on high; 
instead they vibrate excitably. As for throwing my body 
voluntarily out from that friendly cliff, — the only bit of 
mother earth, though at a peculiar angle, within several 
hundred feet, — it hardly seemed sensible. I did not wait 
to reach the top to decide that it was too hot to climb to 
the bridge, and I think the others went through a similar 
mental process, for when I thankfully was pulled over 
the edge, I heard several people say, "Awfully hot, isn't 
it? Pretty hot to go much further?" 

The Golfer was the last and heaviest to come up the 
rope. Halfway up, his arms shot out wildly, and I heard 
a gasp of horror, and far below, plop, plop, saw one 
hard rubber ball after another leap as the chamois from 
crag to crag, and join the river below. He had tied the 
box of balls insecurely, it seemed. For the moment we 
could hardly have felt worse if it had been the Golfer 
himself. A baker's dozen went where no caddy could 
find them. From our pockets we collected eleven balls, 
with which to perform the deed which had brought us 
toilfully through these perils. 

We could see only the keystone of the Bridge from 
the summit of our cliff, but its surface offered a good 
approach. Murray took the first drive. His ball made 
a magnificent arc, grazed the top of the Bridge, seemed 
to hesitate a moment, then fell on the near side. Then 
came the Golfer's turn. He approached it several times, 
but something seemed wrong. He cast a look in our 
direction. We had been frivolously talking. He drove, 
but the ball glanced to one side and disappeared. 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 289 

"Better luck," he said, passing the club to Murray. 
But Murray had no better luck, and the two alternated 
until it seemed as if the San Juan must be choked with 
golf balls. 

"It's an easy drive. Any duffer could do it," said the 
Golfer impatiently. Apparently there was something 
about the drive more difficult than it looked. Perspec- 
tive was lost in the clear air, and the jumble of rocks 
before us seemed closer than they were. With only two 
balls remaining, the Golfer again took his turn, after 
several brilliant failures on both sides. Once more he 
turned a majestic glance toward us. A bee had crawled 
down my back, and Martha was removing it, but after 
that glance we let the bee stay where he was. A hushed 
silence fell on our little group at this historic moment. 
Since Adam and Eve, we were the first group of people 
ever gathered together in this lonely, inaccessible spot 
for the purpose of driving a golf-ball over the Rainbow 
Bridge. No cheers came from the assemblage as the 
Golfer addressed the ball innumerable times, and at last 
raised his brassie and drove. 

"Keep your eye on the ball," said someone. We did 
so, and our several eyes soared toward the arch, struck 
the rock towering beside the bridge, and ricochetted over 
the far side. Technically, though by a fluke, we had the 
ball over. I say we, because we all worked as hard as 
the Golfer and Murray. Murray refused the last ball, 
and just because he didn't have to, the Golfer drove this 
easily and surely over. We had achieved our purpose. 
We were the first to put a golf ball over Rainbow Bridge, 
not a great contribution to history or science, but giving 
us a certain hilarious satisfaction. It is not so easy to be 



290 WESTWARD HOBOES 

first at anything in these days, when everything has been 
tried already. Toby who once stigmatized the ambition 
as "cheap," crossed her fingers as the Golfer launched 
his last ball, and photographed him in the act for the 
benefit of posterity. Our Old-Timer, another scoffer, 
later spent an hour hunting the triumphal ball, and on 
retrieving it from the river bank, begged it for a sou- 
venir. Anyone who doubts the authenticity of our feat 
may see the ball at Kayenta today. And even Hostein 
Chee, alias Wah-Wah, alias De-jiss-je, salvaged a half- 
dozen of the lost balls, and was seen patiently hacking 
away at them with the Golfer's best brassie. And he 
was remarkably good at it, too. 

The campfire, built that night under the sweeping 
black arch, seemed like home amid the looming cliffs and 
monoliths. The air was full of that strangest, most 
arresting odor in the desert, — the smell of fresh, run- 
ning water. 

I lay awake for hours, watching the stars wheel over 
the curve of the arch. It was not surprising that the 
Navajos held this spot in superstitious reverence, as the 
haunt of gods. We were all, I think, in a state of sus- 
pended attention, waiting for something to happen which 
never did happen. Soon the moon, startlingly brilliant 
in the high air, circled over to the wall topping the south- 
west side of the bridge, and upon this lofty screen the 
arch was reproduced in silhouette. Why this should 
have seemed the last touch to the strange beauty of the 
place I do not know, but when I waked Toby to watch 
it, we lay there, almost holding our breath, until the 
shadow had made its arc down the side of the cliff 
and disappeared. 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 291 

After a week's travel to reach the Bridge, to turn 
homeward instantly seemed ridiculous. The first day 
took us a weary twenty-five miles back to De-jiss-je Camp, 
prodding our exhausted animals every step of the way, 
till we too were exhausted. We intended to circle back 
through Utah, crossing Piute and Nakis Canyons at the 
upper end and touching the lower edge of the Monument 
country. Always a wearing trip, ours to the Bridge and 
back was more than usually so, because our unexpected 
arrival at Kayenta had given no chance to get the 
horses in condition. Tired animals mean forced camps, 
irregular and scanty meals, and consequently less sleep 
and more fatigue, — a vicious circle. 

We ate the last of the mutton that night. Tough and 
sandy and gristly it proved, but the stew from it was 
fairly delicious. When the meal ended, Wah-Wah bor- 
rowed a needle and thread, and smilingly announced to 
our circle that he intended to mend his outer garments. 
Without further ceremony, he pulled his shirt and 
trousers off, leaving only his checkerboard underdrawers. 
Pleased at the concentration of interest, which he attrib- 
uted to his skill at sewing, he beamed upon us all. "Dis- 
gusting old heathen," said Martha. 

But Hostein Chee was not without friends. Next 
morning with a show of great enthusiasm an old Navajo 
rode up, greeted him, and thereafter, either lured by 
Red Man's companionship or hope of a free lunch thrice 
daily made himself just useful enough to be permitted to 
follow our camp. Fat and venerable, with flowing shirt 
and gray hair tied in a chignon, and hung with jewelry 
he looked so like an old woman that we dubbed him 
Aunt Mary. His manners were no better than poor 



292 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Hostein Chee's, but his manner was superb. Under his 
outer trousers, which flapped loose, he wore bed ticking, 
which served him for napkin, handkerchief, and towel, 
with princely dignity employed. Between the two 
Navajos our stock of sugar ran very low. He did us a 
good turn, however, by riding off to a nearby Ute camp 
and obtaining fresh horses. All those we had started 
with had succumbed. Not only Martha, but all of us 
were glad to exchange mounts for the tough little mules 
which had carried the packs in and were now willing to 
carry us out of Nonnezoche Boco. Toby bestrode Annie, 
who from being despised and rejected of all was now the 
prize. She never wandered, kept at an even pace, and 
never missed the trail. Annie is one of the few people 
In the world who could find her way to the bridge and 
back without a guide. 

Another day brought us to the borders of Utah and 
Arizona. The Rainbow Bridge belongs to Utah, a day 
over the line. Piute Canyon crosses both states. We 
had passed it In Arizona and were now to cross it In 
Utah. But both states claim the glory of owning the 
most magnificent territory in the Union. If the Grand 
Canyon were more tremendous than any one thing we 
saw in these three days' march, still it has not the cumu- 
lative effect of grandeur piled upon grandeur. Since the 
discovery of the Bridge in 1909 its discoverers and an 
increasing number of people who have seen this country 
have advocated making It a National Park. It Is certain 
no park we now have could rival Its stupendous 
uniqueness. 

Canyon after canyon opened before us, painted In the 
distance with every hue Imaginable. Piute Canyon was 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 293 

buff and pink; Copper canyon, following soon after, a 
gorgeous blaze of rich red and deep blue tones. Then 
came a succession of three smaller canyons each turned a 
different hue by the sun, the distance and the substance of 
the rock. We ascended and descended in the blazing 
heat, until it seemed as if all life had been a going up 
and a coming down. Toward sunset on the ninth day, a 
trail overlooking a long narrow valley ended abruptly in 
a pass cut through solid boulders which we could barely 
ride through. Beyond, unexpectedly, a broad vista of 
the Monument country spread like a vision of the 
promised land. Isolated cliffs pointed the valley, in 
every grotesque form. Rocks as high as Cleopatra's 
Needle and the arch of Napoleon, and similarly shaped; 
new world sphinxes, organ rocks, trumpeting angels, 
shapes of beasts and men had been carved here in past 
ages by the freaks of wind and water. One of the busiest 
corners of the earth ages ago and now the loneliest and 
most desolate, its beauty was like a woman's who had 
survived every passion, and lives in retrospect. 

El Capitan, rising alone from the yellow sands, sailed 
before us like a full-rigged ship from sunset to the next 
morning, when we rode our last eighteen miles to Kay- 
enta. The sight of it, and the orange dunes beyond 
spurred us all. Spontaneously we broke into a twelve 
mile canter. The little white mule Annie who had finally 
fallen to me, kept her freshness and speed and general 
pluckiness. She out-distanced them all by a length. 
We made a ludicrous picture as we came flying over the 
rocks and dunes and desert, shouting and galloping. 
Even the pack beasts, worn to bone since they departed 
from the corral, smelled Kayenta, and there was no 



294 WESTWARD HOBOES 

stopping them. Navajos rode out to join us, leaving 
their herd of a thousand sheep to cross our path at their 
peril. We arrived not half an hour after the Indian 
messenger, sent ahead to tell of our coming. 

How civilized the remote little trading post seemed! 
How ultra-aesthetic to eat at a table with napkins and 
table linen, food passed by a neat Navajo maid! What 
throngs of people inhabited Kayenta, — more than we 
had met altogether in ten days ! We bathed who had 
not seen water, we feasted and relaxed, and bought 
Navajo necklaces in the store. To our surprise the same 
old women we had left behind us were still alive and 
scarcely grayer or more toothless; we had not been away 
for years, as had seemed from our isolation in the still 
canyons where all sense of time disappeared and we 
lived in eternity along with the rocks and sky. 

That evening, as we sat on wool bags heaped high 
near the post, a group of young Navajos came and 
announced they wished to welcome our return with a 
serenade. They grouped in a circle, very bashful at our 
applause, and while one held a lantern, began to sing 
their* ancient tribal songs. I shall never forget the weird 
setting of rolling hills of orange sand, and moonlighted 
red cliffs behind the circle of their dark figures. Lightly 
swaying to the music, they began a savage chanting, with 
rhythmically placed falsetto yelps and guttural shouts. 
Their voices had real beauty, and the music suited their 
surroundings. They started with a mild song of hunt- 
ing or love, but soon they were singing war songs. Our 
blood stirred to an echo of something we knew many 
lives ago. The lantern light made a wilder, wider arc; 
the shouts became more fierce; the group swayed faster 




MOM'MEXT COUXTRV, RAl.M.u\', 1 k.VII.. 
Isolated cliffs pointed the valley in every grotesque form. 




R.\INBO\V BRIDGE TRAIL. 



RAINBOW BRIDGE 295 

and swung Into a wide ellipse. Worked upon by the 
hypnotism of their war-music, they locked arms about 
each other in tight grip; for the moment they were ages 
away from Carlisle. The blackness, the orange hills, the 
swinging light, the shouts, the listening stillness of the 
desert, — that will always be Kayenta for me. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE CANYON DE CHELLEY 

WE had been pulled out of difficulties by donkeys, 
men, autos and pulleys. It remained for Kayenta 
to show us a new way out. When a terrific thank-you- 
marm jolted off our power, our late host's daughter rode 
out on her stout cow-pony, roped us, so to speak, and 
started forward as though she intended to tow us. The 
knowing horse, who had seen thousands of steers act as 
the old lady was doing now, treated the car with equal 
contempt, and braced her feet. It was thirty-horse to 
one-horse power, but the better animal won. We slid 
forward in gear, jolting our power on again as we 
moved ahead. 

Sluggish after two week's hard exercise, we were late 
in getting started for Chin Le. Thunderous clouds were 
already blackening the afternoon sky. They greatly 
increased the desert's beauty, making it majestic beyond 
words. Soon the storm burst, and silver sheets of rain 
obliterated everything but the distant red hills. We were 
in the middle of a flat plain with landmarks more or less 
like any other landmarks. By twilight we were travel- 
ing through thick, red mud, and by dark the mud had 
disappeared beneath an inland lake. The road was not. 
We only knew we kept to it, in some miraculous fashion, 
because we continued slowly to progress. Halfway to 

Chin Le we stopped in the dark at a little trader's post, 

296 



THE CANYON DE CHELLEY 297 

bought gasoline at seventy-five cents a gallon, and con- 
tinued our splashing. All we could see between two lines 
of hills was water. We lost the road for a moment, got 
into a deep draw, and when we emerged from our bath, 
the generating system was no more. 

Around us was blackness, with a few distant mesas 
outlined through the slashing rain. The men got out, 
and examined the machinery, while Toby and I stayed 
within, enjoying the luxury of a breakdown which neces- 
sitated no exertion on our part. They returned covered 
with mud halfway to the knees. The guide volunteered 
to walk to Chin Le for help. It might be five or ten 
miles. We promised, rather unnecessarily, not to move 
till he returned. He took our one electric torch, and 
vanished into the blackest night I ever saw. A forlorn 
feeling settled over us. We had no light, little food and 
no guide, and no present means of transportation. If 
our guide fell into some new-born raging torrent, not 
one of us knew the way back. 

In five minutes we were all asleep. We were awakened 
hours later by a voice that meant business, shouting 
"Stop! Who's there?" 

Murray's round, red face loomed above the front seat 
like the rising moon. 

"Who's there?" The Golfer took up the challenge. 

We in the back seat trembled. Whoever was there 
had us at his mercy. We were entirely unarmed. No- 
body answered, and in a few minutes we regained enough 
courage to ask questions in bated whispers. 

"What did you see, Murray?" 

"The burglar," said Murray, looking bewildered. 



298 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Then It dawned on us he had been having a nightmare, 
and we all breathed again. 

"What time is it?" someone asked. 

"One o'clock." We looked at each other. The guide 
had been gone four hours. 

"Had we better hunt for him?" asked Murray. 

"Where could we go?" asked the Golfer. 

That seemed to settle • all question of action. We 
repacked ourselves and I made myself more comfortable 
by removing a suitcase from my left foot, and Toby's 
specimens from the back of my neck, and soon we were 
asleep again. It seemed heartless, not knowing the 
guide's fate, but I suppose we reasoned we could face 
tragedy better if we had our sleep out. So quiet fol- 
lowed. We awoke through the night only to complain 
of a paralyzed foot or arm, and demand our share of 
the car and covers. A strange informality prevailed, as 
must when five people, each aggressively bent on obtain- 
ing his proper amount of rest, occupy one touring car 
all night. 

At four, a hideous noise awoke us. Murray had 
fallen on the horn, and had brought forth sound. It took 
us a moment to realize this meant the return of our 
power. We were free to go ahead. But with north, 
south, east and west completely disguised as an inland 
sea, we thought it discreet to wait till sunrise. We no 
longer hoped for the guide's return, and gloomily looked 
for a sad ending to our trip. 

The sunrise, when it came, was worth waiting for. 
Fresh-washed and glowing, the holiday colors of the 
hills came out from the mediocre buffs and grays of the 
desert, and the primrose sky slowly became gilded with 




ENTRANCE TO THE CANYON DE CHELLEY. 



THE CANYON DE CHELLEY 299 

glory. As nothing exceeds the weariness of the desert at 
noon, so nothing compares with its freshness, its revela- 
tion of beauty, at dawn. Each mesa was outlined in gold. 
Waves of color, each melting Into the next, flushed the 
prairie and sky. We forgot the tedium of the night In 
this splendor of morning. 

We motored slowly through all this glory, — our car 
having started on the first trial, — through seven miles of 
mud, but Chin Le had apparently been swallowed up 
by the deluge. The mesas took on an unfamiliar aspect, 
and we concluded that hidden by some gully, we had 
gone beyond our destination. A red-banded Navajo on 
a pinto rode up curiously when we called him. He was 
the only soul on the vast horizon, and he understood no 
English, and appeared slow In comprehending our Na- 
vajo. Waving his hand vaguely in the direction from 
which we came, he repeated one word. 

"Ishklish!" 

"If we only knew what ishklish meant we should be 
all right," said Toby hopefully. 

"Not ishklish, — sllcklish," corrected the Golfer who 
had made quite a specialty of Navajo, and who could 
pronounce, "De-jiss-je" better than any of us. "Slick- 
lish! I know I've heard that word before." 

"Ishklish ! Sllcklish," we repeated with bent brows, 
in Gllbertian chorus. "We've heard that word before. 
We're sure we've heard that word before." 

"Ishklish!" assented the Navajo. 

The Golfer pursued his philological meditations to a 
triumphant end. 

"Sllcklish means matches!" he announced. 

His discovery did not impress us as he expected. 



300 WESTWARD HOBOES 

"Why should he come up to a party of motorists at 
five in the morning to say 'matches' ?" we asked. 

"Because he wants a cigarette," answered our lin- 
guist. "As it is a marked discourtesy among Indians to 
offer a cigarette without matches, he takes the more 
subtle way of begging a smoke by asking for matches. 
Slicklish !" 

"Ishklish !" nodded the Navajo. Apparently he could 
keep on like that forever. 

Pulling out his cigarette case, the Golfer gave the 
Indian a handful with a match. The latter gave us a 
radiant smile, and rode away. 

"You see that's what he meant." 

Murray often put his finger on the point. "What good 
does that do us?" he asked. 

Following the Navajo's vague gestures, we came at 
last within sight of the long government buildings of 
Chin Le. But between them and us an arroyo lay, no 
longer the puddle we had splashed through on our way 
to Kayenta, but four feet of red torrent which had al- 
ready cut down the soft banks into miniature cliffs, and 
completely barred our crossing. We shuddered when we 
saw it, and thought how easy it would be for a man to 
slip over these slippery banks in the dark. Now seriously 
concerned at the guide's failure to appear, the two men 
started off to find if possible a ford they might safely 
attempt, while we got out the coffee pot, and built a tiny 
fire of twigs, the only fuel in sight. The matches were 
wet, the sugar melted, and the can-opener lost. By the 
time we managed to get the coffee boiling we saw a two 
horse team crossing the stream, with the trader and the 
missing guide on the front seat. 



THE CANYON DE CHELLEY 301 

"Where did you spend the night?" we asked, much 
relieved to see him alive. 

"In bed, at Mr. Stagg's," he answered. He explained 
that he had reached Chin Le safely, and had taken a 
wagon out to find us, but failing to do so, had gone back 
to bed. He started out In the morning just in time to 
save Murray -and the Golfer from a cold swim. 

Leaving the car until the flood should abate, we piled 
our belongings and ourselves into the wagon, and started 
across the muddy stream. The water rose to the hubs, 
then to the horses' shoulders. One stepped in a hole, 
almost disappearing, and nearly carrying the wagon with 
him, but at last we crossed safely, and reached Stagg's 
in time for breakfast. We told the adventures of the 
night, ending with our encounter with the Navajo. 

"What does ishklish mean?" we asked. 

"You mean slicklish," corrected the Golfer. 

"Ishklish? Slicklish?" said Mr. Stagg. "Oh, you 
mean ushklush." 

"Well, what does ushklush mean?" 

"Why, ushklush means mud." 

It Is, I think, the best name for mud that could be 
Invented, especially the Navajo mud we had ushklushed 
through since dawn. 

We were all unprepared for the Canyon de Chelley 
when we came upon it, a few hours later. The entrance 
Is the sort all such places should have, casual, yet dra- 
matic, — hiding one moment what it reveals with telling 
effect the next. The rolling plain apparently spread for 
miles without variation; nothing unusual, sand and bleak 
dunes, sage and pifion, and behind, against buff hills, the 
rather ugly government buildings, schools, hospitals, and 



302 WESTWARD HOBOES 

like substitutes for freedom that we give the Indian. 
We rode a few steps down a natural rocky incline, and 
a wall opened, as it did for Aladdin, and through the 
aperture of these gate-like cliffs we saw the beginning of 
a narrow valley, grassy and fertile, bordering a river 
imprisoned for life between continuous walls, smooth, 
dark red, varying in height from three hundred to three 
thousand feet, and as unbroken as if some giant had 
sliced them with his sword. We rode through this em- 
bodiment of Dead Man's Gulch, and came a few feet 
beyond on the canyon of whose beauty we had heard 
from afar. 

Canyon de Chelley is a dry river bed, with banks a 
thousand feet or more in the air. In winter and early 
spring the water brims up to the solid walls hemming it 
in on all sides, leaving no foothold for horse or man. As 
It recedes, towards summer, it leaves broad strips of 
beaches and fertile little green nooks under the shadow of 
the cliffs, with the river meandering in the middle. Yet 
lovely as it Is, it has a Lorelei charm. Its yellow sands, 
when not thoroughly dry, are treacherous, — quicksand 
of the worst sort. 

With our outfit we had a large wagon, which our 
driver turned too quickly over a new cut-bank. In an 
instant, the wagon toppled on two wheels, and we had a 
vision of Toby and Martha flying through the air, fol- 
lowed by bedding, cameras and supplies. Fortunately 
they barely escaped the overturning wagon, which fol- 
lowed them, and landed unhurt. Before we could reach 
them the contents of the wagon were entirely covered by 
the sucking sand. Had it been spring, when the pull 




NEAR THE ENTRAM L Ul CANYON DE CHELLEY, ARIZONA. 
Canyon de Chelley is a river bed with banks a thousand feet or more in air. 



THE CANYON DE CHELLEY 303 

of the quicksand Is more vigorous, we should not have 
been able to recover them. 

Those of us who were on horseback followed the edge 
of the stream, sometimes acting as guide for the wagon, 
sometimes following in its slow wake. We galloped 
ahead, on the hard sands, level and smooth for miles, or 
splashed to our horses' knees in the deeper parts of the 
stream, or edged them more cautiously through quick- 
sands, of which there still remained more than a trace. 
They sank to the ankles, and each hoof left a little swirl- 
ing, sucking well, which quickly filled with water. But 
only one spot seemed at all dangerous. 

The river was constantly turning and twisting upon 
itself, looking back over its shoulder through gateways 
of sheer cliffs, smooth as if someone had frosted them 
with chocolate icing. In the narrow space between them 
a little Paradise of shade and sunlight, grass and blossom- 
ing fruit trees, ran like a parti-colored ribbon. The 
Navajos have planted peach trees In this fertile strip. 
Graceful cottonwoods make an emerald shelter, and 
brooks branch into the central stream. The river spreads 
out in great shallows at will, with rank grass growing 
knee-high at Its edge. Rocks like cathedrals stand guar- 
dian at every turn, so close together sometimes that the 
sky is held prisoner in a wedge of blue. 

Patches of rough gardens cut into the flowered banks 
gave us our first intimation that the Paradise sheltered 
an Adam and an Eve. Then we saw wattled huts of 
willow, the summer hogans of Navajos, airier and more 
graceful than their mud plastered winter huts. On turn- 
ing a corner where the receding river had already left a 
long, fertile Island, we came on an encampment of these 



304 WESTWARD HOBOES 

brightly dressed, alert Arabs, with their keen faces and 
winged poise. Horses and sheep were pastured near, and 
under the trees several women had erected frames on 
which were stretched half-finished rugs. Others, in their 
full gathered skirts with gay flounces, rode their horses 
to water as easily as if they wore breeches and puttees. 
Under the cliffs they looked like tiny dots. This canyon 
Is the favorite summer resort of neighboring Indians, and 
no wonder. Here for a pleasant season they can forget 
the arid wastes of the desert in their apricot orchards, 
and grow without travail their corn and beans and 
melons. 

We had scarcely left this gypsy encampment before 
we saw mute evidence that the place had been beloved of 
more than one generation of Indians. Nearly at the top 
of a rock clustered a few cliff houses, mere crannies in 
the wall, and all along that unbroken cliff were little, 
scared shelters, no bigger than mousetraps, watching 
with scared eyes as no doubt their inmates did long ago, 
the approaches to their stronghold. Tradition has It 
that the architects of these houses were ancestors of the 
Hopis, driven here partly by enemies, partly by drought, 
but also by the Inspiration of their medicine men. It Is 
not strange these empty nests should be arresting sights, 
dating back to the antiquity when the Hopis could turn 
into snakes, and the king's son and his snake bride fol- 
lowed the star which led them to Walpl. They may have 
Inhabited the very eyrie we saw. A tiny, bridal apart- 
ment It was, so inaccessible at the top of this slab of rock 
that only a snake could climb to it. Surely no entirely 
human feet would dare venture those heights. 

We were struck by the many Isolated dwellings we 




CLIFF-DWELLINGS, CAXVON DE CHELLEY, ARIZONA. 



THE CANYON DE CHELLEY 305 

came upon. Unlike the extensive cities at Beta-Takin, 
at Walnut Canyon, and Mesa Verde, these must have 
been intended for single families. Between the various 
groups is a distance sometimes of a half mile, sometimes 
a mile. The largest and by far the most impressive group 
In the canyon Is Casa Blanca, the White House of some 
ancient dignitary occupying a commanding position look- 
ing far down the valley In both directions. The river 
cuts deep and narrow here, with shallow Islands between. 
Above it by twenty feet is a bank where crumbling walls, 
painted with prehistoric pictographs of birds and ani- 
mals, stand under the shadow of Casa Blanca. The 
rock is blood red when the sun strikes It, and purple in 
the shadow. Seventy feet up, the whitewashed walls of 
this ancient mansion are startllngly, romantically promi- 
nent, looking fresh enough to have been painted yesterday. 

How the former dwellers reached Casa Blanca is a 
puzzle. They must have had the aid of ladders and 
niches In the rock. Today It is completely inaccessible, 
except to Douglas Fairbanks, who once bounded lightly 
up Its side. A day's ride down the left fork, overlook- 
ing a vale meant for stately pleasure domes. Is the Cave 
of the Mummies. This community of cliff dwellings is 
so called because one startled explorer found In it seven 
mummies. In perfect preservation. The cave can be 
reached by diligent climbing, and aside from all interest 
in things past, the view down that graceful, twisting val- 
ley is worth losing many hours of breath. 

We camped that night under a red monolith big 
enough to bury a nation beneath It. The beauty of that 
scene is past my exhausted powers of description. The 
campfire and the river, the smooth cliffs penetrating the 



3o6 WESTWARD HOBOES 

black sky with such strength and suavity, were the same 
essentials as we found at the Rainbow Bridge, yet with 
all the difference in the world. Grandeur was here, but 
not the rugged hurly-burly of Titans which overwhelmed 
and dwarfed us there. Where the San Juan tumbles and 
froths, and bursts over boulders, struggling and tumul- 
tuous, the de Chelley river glides peacefully, widening 
about pretty shallows and quiet islands. In Nonnezoshe 
Boco, the rocks are tortured into strange shapes, twisted 
and wrung like wet clay; here they are planed smooth 
and not tossed about helter-skelter, but rhythmically re- 
peating the pattern of the stream. 

The essential quality of the Canyon de Chelley is not 
its grandeur, I think, but its rhythm, and the opposite 
may be said of the Bridge. Those who have seen only 
de Chelley might well challenge this statement, for a 
river walled in its entire length by cliffs a quarter to a 
half mile high can hardly be called less than tremen- 
dous. But following as it does the meanderings of a 
whimsical stream, none of the continuous pictures it 
makes lacks graceful composition. Here one could spend 
pleasant months, loafing in those little groves by the 
river's brim. Now the Rainbow Trail could never be 
called pleasant. It is ferocious, forbidding, terrible, 
desolate, vast, — with relieving oases of garden and 
stream, but it does not invite to loaf. It is an arduous 
and exacting pilgrimage. It does not smile, like de 
Chelley, nor remind one of the gracious and stately land- 
scapes of Claude Lorraine. 

Perhaps a better climax would have been gained by 
seeing the Canyon de Chelley first, and progressing to the 




CASA BLANCA, CANYON DE CHELLEY, ARIZONA. 
The rock is blood red when the sun strikes it, and purple in the shadow. 



THE CANYON DE CHELLEY 307 

Bridge, as we should have done had de Chelley not been 
flooded when we stopped on our way to Kayenta. But 
anticlimax or not, we loved the rest and relaxation after 
our strenuous adventure. It was like entering Heaven 
and finding it unexpectedly gay. 



CHAPTER XXII 

NORTH OF GALLUP 

I CAN still, by shutting my eyes, see thousands of 
vistas, — little twisting roads clinging tightly to cliffs, 
tangles of cactus, gray cliff dwellings, pregnant with the 
haunting sense of life fled recently, deserts ablaze over- 
night with golden poppies and blue lupin, forests of giant 
pines backed by blue mountains, snow-peaked; long views 
of green valleys with cottonwood-bordered streams, miles 
of silver pampas grass, neat rows of ugly new bunga- 
lows in uncompromising sunlight, older wooden shacks 
with false fronts, dry prairies white with the skeletons 
of cattle, copper colored canyons dropping from under- 
foot far into the depths of earth, water-holes with thou- 
sands of moving sheep; spiky, waxen yuccas against a 
night sky; — all this is the West, but inseparable from 
these mental visions come pungent odors so sharp that I 
can almost smell them now. 

I cannot hope to reproduce the charm and joy of our 
wanderings, despite mishaps and disasters, because the 
freshness of mountain altitudes will not drift from 
the leaves of this book, nor the perfume of sunshine 
on resin, of miles of mountain flowers, nor the scent 
of desert dust, dry and untainted by man, the sharp 
smell of camps, — bacon cooking, wet canvas, horse 
blankets and leather; — bitter-sweet sage, sweet to the 

nostril and keen to the tongue, nor the tang of new-cut 

308 



NORTH OF GALLUP 309 

lumber, frosty nights, and fresh-water lakes, glacier 
cooled; the reek of an Indian village, redolent of doe- 
skin and dried meats hanging in the sun; — I am homesick 
for them ! And so is everyone who has found good 
hunting northwest of the Rio Grande. 

We again found ourselves on the old Spanish Trail, 
which leads into Utah through Farmington and a bit of 
Colorado. Most of the way it was desert, a wicked 
collection of chuck-holes, high centers, tree-roots, gullies 
and sand drifts. This was a district once highly re- 
spected and avoided, for a few miles further north lay 
the four state boundaries. Men who find proximity to a 
state line convenient were twice as well suited with the 
Four Corners, reckoning arithmetically, — or four times, 
geometrically. Its convenience probably increased by 
the same ratio their abandoned character over other 
abandoned characters who had only two states in which 
to play hop-scotch with the sheriff. No doubt most of 
these professional outlaws have disappeared, picked off 
by the law's revenge, or by private feud. We should 
have liked to explore this region further, but sundown 
was too near for this to be a judicious act, and while we 
were not always discreet, we were at times. 

In late afternoon we looked ahead of us, and saw in 
this sea of sand two schooners with purple sails full 
rigged, rosy lighted by the setting sun. They tilted 
gracefully on a northerly course, the nearer one seeming 
to loom as high above the other as a sloop above a little 
catboat. No other landmark lifted above the long hori- 
zon save the low hills on our west which at Canyon de 
Chelley had been east of us. Only when we traveled 
five, ten, fifteen miles did we realize the magnitude of 



310 WESTWARD HOBOES 

these giant ships of rock, made so light by the reflection 
of sand and sun that the sails seemed cut out of amethyst 
tissue rather than carved of granite. When we passed 
the first rock, which had seemed so high, it took Its 
proper place, and it became the catboat, while the real 
Shiprock, we saw, far excelled the other in size and 
in its likeness to a ship. With the afterglow, the desert 
became gray and the ship golden, with purple edged sails. 
At dark the desert became blue -black, and the sihip 
melted into a gossamer mist, looming higher as we neared 
it. It must be five or six hundred feet high, and so 
precipitous that nobody has ever scaled its outspread 
wings, though the Human Fly came from New York for 
the purpose, and returned defeated. 

As we went on in this intensely lonely country, out of 
the darkness came an odor that a moment before had 
not been, resembling jasmine or syringa, but fresher than 
either. We stopped the car, expecting to find ourselves 
in the midst of a garden. But all around was only grease- 
wood and sage, sage and greasewood. The twigs we 
plucked to smell broke off brittle in our hands. We 
drove on, much perplexed. 

Just before we reached the town of Shiprock, the air 
lifted with a new freshness. We sniffed, and raised our 
heads as horses do. We were reminded of home. It 
was water ! We had not smelled water for two dry days. 
In an instant we were rolling down shady avenues, and 
saw lights reflected on a river, and crossed into a town 
so dense with green grass and arched trees and roses in 
bloom that it seemed like some old place in New Eng- 
land. Then the mysterious odor, stronger and of un- 
earthly sweetness, came again. It blew from a field of 



NORTH OF GALLUP 311 

alfalfa in bloom, with the night dew distilling its hea- 
venly freshness. We must have been several miles away 
when its perfume first reached us in the desert. 

A car halted in the road before the superintendent's 
house, — for Shiprock is a Navajo agency, — and as we 
stopped, a man and his wife exchanged names and desti- 
nations with us in the darkness. They were from Cali- 
fornia, going to Yellowstone. When we told them our 
home town they said the usual thing. We discussed 
plans for the night. They had none, neither had we. It 
was nearly midnight. 

"That's the agent's house," he said, pointing to the 
only light in town, "but they won't take you there. We 
just asked. The lady's all alone, but she might give you 
directions for a hotel." 

As we went toward the house, an Indian policeman in 
uniform shadowed us, wearing the kind of helmet the 
police used to wear in Boston and rural plays. He seemed 
to alternate between a desire to protect us against Ship- 
rock, and Shiprock against us, his grave manner signi- 
fying he would do justice to both parties. 

The agent's wife directed us to a hotel, which she 
refused to indorse, and when we left, she called after us, 
— "You aren't alone?" 

"Yes," I answered, "all alone, ever since we left Bos- 
ton." And then, to save time, "We're a long ways from 
home.'* 

"I don't know what accommodations you'd find at the 
hotel," she said. "You'd better stay here. Being alone, 
I didn't want to take in any men, but I'd be glad to have 
your company." 



312 WESTWARD HOBOES 

"Did you find a hotel?" asked the kind man in the 
road, as we returned for our baggage. 

"Yes, — here," we said, "not having a man with us." 

"You have the luck," he answered, and his wife 
groaned, and asked him as wives will, what good it did 
her to have him along. 

Our kind hostess gave us a pleasant room, and carte 
blanche to the icebox, for I believe we had no supper 
that night. It may have been partly our kind reception, 
but not entirely so, that made Shiprock seem, when we 
inspected it next day, one of the most attractive and 
sensibly conducted agencies we had visited. It is beau- 
tifully situated where our old friend the San Juan river 
joins another stream, and turns the desert into the green- 
est of farm lands. Roses bloomed about each neat, 
white-picketed house, big trees shaded the road, and the 
lawns were like velvet. Happy looking Navajo chil- 
dren in middy blouses played about the schoolyards or 
splashed in the big swimming pool devoted exclusively to 
them. The teachers and agents whom we met lacked 
that attitude of contempt for their charges we had some- 
times observed in other Indian schools. I have heard 
teachers who could hardly speak without butchering the 
President's English sneer at their Indian charges for re- 
verting to their own tongue. 

The day of our stay on the reservation an interesting 
event took place. Once a year the government requires 
all Navajos to bring in their sheep to be dipped in a 
strong solution of lye and tobacco, to prevent vermin 
and disease. In the early morning the air was filled with 
a thousand bleatings. The dust rose thick from count- 
less hoofs driven to the sheep-dip. The dip was situ- 




NAVAJO SHEEP-DIPPING AT SHIPROCK. 

Fat Navajo squaws pulled the unhappy beasts to the trough by the horns. 



NORTH OF GALLUP 313 

ated against great yellow buttes, and in the distance the 
ship rock sailed in lilac light. Fat Navajo squaws with 
their jewels tied to their belt for safe keeping pulled the 
unhappy beasts to the trough by the horns, where they 
completely submerged them, with the aid of an Indian 
wielding a two-pronged staff. 

"Get in and help," said an old squaw to me. Accord- 
ingly I grasped a rough horn, and discovered it took 
strength and some skill to keep the animals from being 
trampled, as they went down the trough. Once a tre- 
mendous chatter arose, as a result of the squaws count- 
ing their sheep and finding one missing. The poor crea- 
ture was discovered, crushed and bleeding at the bottom 
of the runway. Immediately he was fished out, and 
borne off by two women whom I followed to watch. 
One held the carcass, while the other pulled from her 
woven belt a long, glittering knife. In twenty minutes 
the sheep was skinned, dressed and cut into neat chops 
and loins, and the incident was closed. The women are 
sole owners and custodians of the sheep-herds. The 
gathering that day would have rejoiced the heart of any 
feminist. With one old hag I noticed a beautiful little 
Navajo child dressed in the usual velvet jacket, flowing 
skirt and silver ornaments. Two lumps of turquoise 
were strung in her ears. Her eyes, like her skin, were 
golden brown and her hair bright yellow. Her unusual 
complexion added to her beauty made her a pet of the 
entire village, and the idol of her old grandmother. If 
she was an Albino, the lack of pigment took a more 
becoming form than among the Hopis. 

Mesa Verde National Park is only a short day's run 
from Shiprock. It took us into the edge of Colorado, a 



314 WESTWARD HOBOES 

beautiful, loveable state, endowed with sense, moun- 
tains, good roads and every kind of natural blessing. It 
has a flavor all its own; more mellow than the states of 
the West coast, less prim than those on its eastern bor- 
ders. Our way led between two mountain ranges, one in 
Utah, the other in Colorado, with a long sweep of 
prairies curling like waves at their base. We passed a 
corner of the Ute country, and saw at a spring a group 
of those gaily dressed, rather sullen people, ample 
bodied and round headed. Each tribe differs from the 
others, and these bore a look more like the Northern 
tribes than those we had already met. 

As the Colorado mountains came nearer, I remem- 
bered the words of a fellow traveler, spoken on the 
slippery drive to Taos, New Mexico, which had haunted 
me ever since. 

"This is steep enough, but wait till you climb Mesa 
Verde. The engineer cut a road straight up the moun- 
tain to the top, with as few switchbacks and as little grad- 
ing as he could. It is so narrow that you have to tele- 
phone your arrival when you reach the base of the hill, 
and they shut off all downward traffic till you report at 
the Park." 

We were both by this time inured to horizontal fever, 
and could steer quite debonairly within an inch of a 
thousand foot drop, but we "figured," as they say out 
West, that we had about reached our limit, and if we 
were to encounter anything more vertiginous, something 
might happen. I don't say we dreaded Mesa Verde, but 
I will admit we speculated over our prospects. 

"Heavens! Do they expect us to climb that?'' ex- 
claimed Toby when we sighted the beginning of the 



NORTH OF GALLUP 315 

twenty-six mile road to the Park. A mountain stood on 
its hind legs before us, and pawed the air. The white 
gash of road leading uncompromisingly up its side 
showed us all too well what to expect. At the summit, a 
naked erosion rose like Gibraltar for a hundred feet 
from its green setting. Whether we should have to con- 
quer that bit of masonry we did not. know, but" if we had 
to, I knew our chances were not good. I clung to the 
story I had heard of a one-armed girl who had driven a 
Ford to the top, and then collapsed. We ought to do at 
least as well, we reasoned, reserving, the right to collapse 
on arriv^al. At the base of the hill I telephoned the super- 
intendent of the Park, at a switchboard by the roadside, 
as commanded by placard. 

"Come ahead, and 'phone at the top," he said. His 
voice was most matter-of-fact. From that moment, anti- 
climax reigned. Roads are never as bad as report makes 
them, and this besides being far less narrow than many 
mountain passes we had been through, was beautifully 
graded on the turns, and in excellent condition. We 
passed several steep ravines at curves, — one where a 
car had overturned the week previous, — but none was as 
bad as we had been led to expect. Thanks to the sane 
regulation making it a one way road we had nothing to 
fear from traffic. Valleys, blue and red with a magnifi- 
cent sweep of flowers, dropped down, down, and new 
mountains rose from unexpected coverts. We circled the 
one we were on, pausing at the summit for the view 
over the emerald slopes far below. We reached the base 
of our Gibraltar, but saw on nearer approach that we 
could no more have climbed it then we could climb Wash- 
ington Monument on the outside. Instead we rounded 



3i6 WESTWARD HOBOES 

it, and dipped up and down another hillside, overlooking 
an eastern valley. Here the road was delightfully 
planned so that we could look far ahead over our course, 
and coast or climb without fearing the next turn. Well 
named Is the Park, so surprisingly green after the desert. 
In an hour and three-quarters we had covered the twenty- 
six miles to the Inn. This, we were told by the stage 
drivers, was fairly near record time. 

We met a man soon after our arrival, to whom we 
mentioned that we had recently come from the Rainbow 
Bridge. 

"Oh," said he, "were you in the party where the mule 
threw the man off Into the cactus?" 

News travels like that In the West. 

Mesa Verde is what Is called a three days' park. One 
could easily spend three weeks or three months there 
with profit or delight, camping in Its delicious forests and 
riding over Its mountainsides. But in three days all that 
is to be seen of cliff dwellings and prehistoric ruins can be 
inspected without hurry, unless of course one is an archae- 
ologist. Here are most elaborate ruins, carefully re- 
stored, whose many klvas indicate a prosperous and 
flourishing community. Long canyons, thickly wooded 
and enameled with wild-flowers are lined on both sides 
with these airy villages. A small museum of articles 
found in excavating, displayed in the main house, greatly 
aids the mere amateur. 

We were fortunate in having a guide who knew his 
park like a book. Forsaking routine paths and steps, 
he hoisted us up and down the paths, — mere niches they 
were, — worn in the solid wall by those agile Indians. 
It seems certain that at that time no cliff-mothers In- 




LLllI DULLLLNGS, MESA VERDE PARK, COLORADO. 
Here are most elaborate ruins, carefully restored. 



NORTH OF GALLUP 317 

dulged in the embonpoint affected by so many of their 
descendants. An Inch too much of girdle in the right, — 
or the wrong, — place, would have sent them hurtling 
down Into the canyon, as they climbed those sheer walls. 
Being one of the oldest known cliff communities, Mesa 
Verde Is much more carefully restored than those we saw 
In the Canyon de Chelley and in Segi Canyon. More 
accessible and compact than other ruins, Mesa Verde 
combines the historic, — or prehistoric, — Interest with 
the needs of vacation seekers who wish a few luxuries 
with their cliff dwellings. Although the hotel is of the 
simplest sort, It Is well run. Those who wish to camp 
may do so by obtaining a permit. Tent houses are pro- 
vided as a compromise between camping and hotel life 
for those who want to feel they are roughing it, but pre- 
fer a floor and a mattress between them and the Insect 
world. 

We entered the Mormon country not long after we left 
Mesa Verde and turned north again Into Utah. Here 
once more we had desert, villainous prairie roads, utter 
loneliness, with vista of foothills of the Rockies guarding 
our route. We drove hard and camped where midnight 
found us, or, too weary to spread our tent, went still fur- 
ther to the next one of the miserably equipped towns in 
rural Utah, where we had the benefit of rickety bed- 
springs and stifling bedrooms. It was cherry time, and 
each warm day we blessed Brigham Young for his fore- 
sight In encouraging the growth of fruit trees. The Mor- 
mons were the earliest In the West to understand the use 
of Irrigation. Their villages, slatternly as to buildings, 
nestle in lanes and avenues of poplar and cottonwood, 
and their gardens bear all manner of fruit. They are 



3i8 WESTWARD HOBOES 

good providers, too, in this rural desert, and at noon 
sharp, when we stopped doubtfully at some unpainted 
shack, bearing the sign Cafe, we were astonished at the 
abundance of wholesome country food spread on the 
long table. We sat among a group of overalled men, 
who ate in silence, except for the sounds of mastication. 

"Help yourself. Brother Smith. Brother Thacher, you 
aint eatin' today," the ample goddess who presided over 
the stove in the corner of the room would encourage her 
patrons. At the close of the meal, whether we had con- 
sumed one or six helpings of the cheese, the meat pie, the 
ham, the raspberries and stoned cherries with rich coun- 
try cream in quart pitchers, the apple pie and chocolate 
cake, we wiped our fingers on napkins well used to such 
treatment, paid our "six bits" and departed, our part- 
ing "Good-day" being answered with caution. 

Through such country, uninhabited for long stretches, 
we were driving one evening, hoping to reach Green 
River forty miles north. Though with filial respect we 
often remembered the last injunction of Toby's parent, 
we were frequently obliged to postpone fulfilling it till 
a more convenient occasion. Tonight we had to choose 
between making a barren camp in open prairie and push- 
ing on to the nearest hotel. A dry camp made after dark 
represents the height of discomfort, so we chose the al- 
ternative. Our route lay over a waste of sand, — that 
portion of the desert which claims central Utah. For 
several miles we followed the wretched little prairie 
tracks, but finally, to our great joy, we struck into a broad 
state road in perfect condition, raised above the floor of 
the desert by several feet. We made marvelous speed. 



NORTH OF GALLUP 319 

Who would have expected to find a boulevard in the 
heart of rural Utah? 

Whoever would, was doomed to speedy disappoint- 
ment. Our boulevard seemed to lack continuity; several 
times we were forced to forsake it and make detours back 
over the trails. Soon our highway, which was leveled an 
easy grade above the desert, began to rise in the air, 
until in the pitch dark it assumed an alarmingly dizzy 
elevation. About the same time the marks of traffic 
faded. We passed through a morass of crushed stone, 
and thence into thick sand, over which we skidded alarm- 
ingly toward the edge of the bank. Perhaps we were 
eighteen or twenty feet above the desert, but when we 
veered for the edge, it semed like a hundred. The heavy 
sand clung to our wheels, making progress hard and skid- 
ding easy. We passed through a cut with heavy banks 
on both sides, and in front a black shadow. 

"Why, where's the road?" exclaimed Toby. 

There was none. We were left high and dry, with a 
sandhill on both sides, steep banks dropping down among 
rocks and gullies to the desert, a yawning hole in front 
with a precipitous drop of twenty feet, and two feet of 
leeway, in which to turn our car. We backed cautiously 
down the side, and struck a boulder. We turned forward 
a few inches, and came upon a heap of sand. Toby got 
out, and directed our maneuvers, inch by inch. Finally 
we had the car broadside to the jumping-off place, and 
there we stuck, tilted at a crazy angle, one headlight 
almost directly above the other. In the heavy, untracked 
sand we could not move an inch. 

"Well," I said bitterly, "here we spend the night. 
Twelve miles from nowhere !" 



320 WESTWARD HOBOES 

At that four men with a lantern sprang up from no- 
where. 

"How kind of you to come," we said to the men, as- 
suming they were there to rescue, not to rob. 

"We saw your headlights," answered the one who held 
the lantern, "and from the way they were slanted we con- 
cluded you was in trouble and we might as well come over. 
We're working on the new state road, and this is as far 
as it's got. Our camp's just over there, and Green 
River's twelve miles further." 

Backing and filling, with their four brawny shoulders 
to the wheels, we soon got the car out of the sand heap 
and turned about, but the deep sand was crowned so high 
that for a stretch we skidded along at so sharp an angle 
that only the tug of the sand kept us from turning turtle. 
Our friends put us on our way, going a half mile out of 
their own to do so. 

The sleepy clerk at Green River was locking the hotel 
up for the night as we stopped before his door. 

"My, you're in luck," said he. "If the midnight train 
hadn't been late this hotel would have been closed up 
tight." 

Such incidents, happening almost daily, began to give 
us a reckless faith In our luck, or our guardian angels, or 
the special Providence said to look after certain types of 
people, whichever you may choose to call it. Ministering 
angels of the first calibre had perfected their system to 
give instant service day or night. They thought nothing 
of letting us run dry of gasoline on a road where all 
morning we had not passed a single car, and sending us 
within five minutes a truck carrying a barrel of the useful 
fluid. They delighted In letting us drive a bit too fast 



NORTH OF GALLUP 321 

down a narrow canyon, where a blowout from our ragged 
tires would have mingled our bones forever with the "old 
lady's," arriving scatheless at the bottom simultaneous- 
ly with a blowout which dragged us, standing, across the 
road. Once a Ford, driven by inexpert and slightly be- 
fuddled Elks, crashed into us on a narrow bridge, with 
no results beyond a bent canteen. When we broke 
four spring leaves at dusk in a lonesome hamlet, they 
placed across the street an expert German blacksmith 
of the old school, who did not object to night hours, 
and who forged us new springs which finally outwore 
the car. By happy mistake, they took us down pleasant 
by-paths less fortunate tourists who went by Bluebook 
never knew. Altogether, they were a firm of remark- 
able reliability, and If I knew their address I should pub- 
lish it. But they preferred to do good anonymously. 

I think It was they who directed us through the Sho- 
shone reservation on the very day of the year when the 
tribe held its Important ceremony, the Sun Dance. We 
reached Fort Hall, the Shoshone agency, one morning, 
and were told casually of a dance being held on the reser- 
vation, not a mile out of our way. When we reached 
it a magnificent Indian, the first we had seen who could 
be called a red man, (for the Southern Indians are brown 
and ochre colored), barred our path on horseback. He 
knew his cerise sateen shirt was becoming, even without 
the purple necktie he wore. It gave him confidence to 
demand an entrance fee of $2.00 — an entirely Impromp- 
tu idea inspired by our eagerness. The more I see of Lo 
the Poor Indian the more I am convinced that he is poor 
only for lack of opportunity to exercise his talents. How- 



322 WESTWARD HOBOES 

ever, the dance was worth the money, — far more than 
some other barefoot dances I have seen. 

It had begun when we arrived on the scene, hi fact, It 
had been going on for two days. Crowds of women, 
some dressed in long plaid shawls and high moccasins, 
others in starched muslins and straw hats; bright-eyed 
papooses slung on their mother's backs in beautiful white 
doeskin cradles; majestic chiefs six feet tall and more in 
high pointed Stetsons, with long robes of cotton sheet- 
ing, giddily dyed, wrapped about them, circled about the 
dancers, who were partly screened from spectators by 
the green branches seen in so many Indian dances. 
These Shoshones are the Indians on the penny. Grave, 
surly giants with copper skin, coarse jet hair and high 
cheek bones, powerful, with a hint of ugliness, they were 
another race from the laughing brown tribes of the south. 
They frowned upon our camera, and finally forbade us, 
in no uncertain manner, to use it. Even the insouciant 
Toby paled and hastily stuffed her camera in her coat as a 
big chief made a threatening lunge at it. That is why 
all our photographs of the Shoshones are taken from the 
rear. 

Old women trotted to and fro constantly with bunches 
of sweet grass and herbs, which they laid on the ground 
beside the resting dancers, who used them to dry and 
refresh their exhausted bodies. A group of old men in 
the corner beat the tom-tom, squatting to their task like 
gnomes. The dancers, naked to the waist, wore a 
short apron-like garment of calico or blanket below. 
Their bodies, old and young, were lithe and stringy, — 
hardly a fat man among them. They showed much ex- 




s||(is||()\I.N Al >l X liAXt K, loRT HALL, IDAHO. 
All our photographs of the Shoshones are taken from the rear. 



NORTH OF GALLUP 3^3 

haustion, — as much perhaps on this second day of the 
dance as white men not in training would after half an 
hour of similar exercise. Many of them were past middle 
age. One was white-haired and wrinkled, but with mag- 
nificent muscles on his bare chest and arms. They alter- 
nately rested and danced in groups, so that the dancing 
was continuous. Running at a jog trot to a great tree in 
the center, decorated with elk horns and a green branch, 
they touched this tree with reverent obeisances and a 
wild upward movement of body and head, then carried 
their hand from it, as if transferring its vitality to their 
knees, their breasts and their heads. For the three days 
and nights the dance was to last, they would neither eat 
nor drink. 

"What does it mean?" I asked a very modern lady, 
dressed in flowered organdy. She smiled a superior 
smile, evidently holding no longer with the gods of her 
ancestors. 

"It's a dance they think will make well sick people. I 
do not know, — some foolishness, I guess." 

A tall chief with a pipe in his mouth, wearing a scarlet 
shawl, fanned himself with a lady's fan of black spangles 
and gauze, and as he fanned he frowned at us, muttering 
at our levity in talking during the sacred ceremonies. He 
only needed a rose behind his ear to make a gaunt Car- 
men of him, temper and all. His eyes fell menacingly 
on Toby's camera, which she had been fingering, and 
Toby-wise she turned and sauntered off as if she hadn't 
seen him, though I imagine her knees shook. 

From the not too friendly Indians we could get no fur- 
ther information of the meaning of the dance, but later I 
discovered we had been fortunate enough to witness the 



324 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Sun Dance. During the winter, when sickness falls upon 
a relative, some Indian will vow to organize this dance, if 
health should return to the sick one. The whole tribe 
comes to take part or to witness the dance. The par- 
ticipants refrain from food or drink for three days, sus- 
tained to their exertion by marvelous nervous energy and 
real religious fervor. Before the government forbade 
the practise it was their custom to cut slits in their breasts 
on the third day of the dance, and insert rawhide ropes, 
which they tied to the tree, throwing themselves back 
and forth regardless of the torture, until the rawhide 
broke through the flesh. 

After the adobe huts and hogans of the Pueblos and 
Navajos, we were delighted by the symmetrical snow- 
white tepee of the Shoshone, who have made not only 
an art but a ceremony of tepee building. Two poles are 
first placed on the ground, butts together. Then two 
poles of equal length are placed in a reversed position. 
A rope of pine tree fibre Is then woven in and out, over 
and under the four poles near the top, knotted securely, 
with long ends hanging. The old custom prescribed 
laying out the camp in half moon shape, each doorway 
facing the point where the sun first appears on the hori- 
zon, shifting with the season. The camp's location de- 
termined, the squaws raise the poles slowly, singing the 
song of the tepee pole, so timed that it comes to an end 
with the upright position of the pole. Two women then 
raise the tent covering, lacing it with carved and polished 
twigs. Two smoke flaps above the entrance, held in 
place by other poles, are moved as the wind varies, to 
draw the smoke rising within the tent. No habitation is 
more knowingly and simply devised than the tepees, 



NORTH OF GALLUP 325 

which are both warm and well ventilated even In winter. 
It is only when the Indians are transplanted to the white 
man's houses that they close doors and windows, light 
great fires, and soon become soft, and fall easy victims 
of the white plague. 

The Shoshone chiefs made no objection as Toby 
snapped a beautiful tepee with an Indian pony tethered 
near, but when she smoothly circled it upon an interested 
group of gaudy giants, one of them, an Isaiah in a white 
robe, touched her on the arm. 

"Move on, damn quick," he said. 

So we did. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 

NOTHING fit to print can be said of the Yellow- 
stone Trail, advertised by various and sundry peo- 
ple as a "good road all the way," with the freedom peo- 
ple take with other people's axles. Here and there are 
smooth patches, but they failed to atone for the vicious- 
ness of the greater part of the route from Salt Lake City 
to the Park. Some of it was merely annoying, but there 
were places where we had to keep our wits about us every 
moment, and had we met another car, so narrow and tor- 
tuous and hilly were the last few miles, we should have 
come to an eternal deadlock. We had for consolation a 
view of some lovely lakes grown about with great pines, 
and in the open stretches, a long view of the great saw- 
toothed Tetons sheltering Jackson's Hole, that region 
beloved of Jesse James before he encountered the *'dirty 
little coward who shot Mr. Howard." All the sinister 
Robin Hoods of the West once knew the supreme ad- 
vantage of Jackson's Hole as a place of temporary with- 
drawal from the world when it became too much with 
them. Now it is infested only by the "dude" sportsman, 
who has discovered its loveliness without as yet spoiling 
it. A tempting sign-post pointed an entrance to this para- 
dise of mountains and lakes, but we had been warned that 
the road there was far worse than the one we came over, 
which was impossible, so we gritted our teeth, and went 

on to the Park. 

326 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 327 

I shall not attempt a description of Yellowstone Park, 
for the same reason that I dodged the Grand Canyon, and 
because its bears, mudholes, geysers, sulphur basins, 
lakes, Wiley camps, falls and dam, its famous parti- 
colored canyon, its busses and Old Faithful were well 
known to thousands long before I was born. 

Yellowstone used to be known less attractively among 
the Indians by the name of Stinking Waters. The park is 
still circled by a roundabout trail, made by superstitious 
tribes, who refused to approach this haunt of devils. No- 
body who has stood on the seething ground of Norris 
Basin, and watched its manifold evil spirits, hardly 
tethered, burst forth and sullenly subside can fail to sym- 
pathize with the untutored savage's reaction. If we had 
not been taught a smattering of chemistry and geology, 
we should undoubtedly feel as he did, and even in spite 
of scientific explanations, the place seemed too personally 
malevolent to be comfortable. Think of a God-fearing 
and devil-respecting mind to whom science was unknown, 
looking on the terrors, the inexplicable manifestations 
this Park contains for the first time ! 

I for one, who rap on wood and walk around ladders, 
would have ridden a long way to avoid those powerful 
spirits. Yet some Indians boldly hunted and trapped in 
what was once a most happy hunting ground. The 
overland course of the buffalo lay through this Park, and 
wherever the buffalo was, the Indian was sure to follow. 
Yellowstone was the refuge of Chief Joseph, of the Nez 
Perces, in his resistance against Howard and United 
States troops. 

Everyone ought to see Yellowstone at least once. No- 
where else are so many extraordinary freaks in so con- 



328 WESTWARD HOBOES 

venient and beautiful a setting. The freaks leave you as 
bewildered as the Whatisit's used to, In the sideshows of 
your youth. Before the last paint pot and boiling spring 
are investigated, the average tourist is in a state of be- 
wildered resentment at Nature for putting it over on him 
so frequently. Besides, his feet ache, and he Is stiff 
from climbing In and out that yellow bus. 

Everyone ought to see Yellowstone at least twice. The 
second time he will forget the freaks and geysers and 
busses running on schedule, and go If possible in his own 
car, with his own horse, or on his own feet. He will take 
his time on the Cody Trail, now I believe, a part of the 
Park but until recently outside its limits. Here he will 
see what is perhaps the most glorious natural scenery In 
Yellowstone, great pointed needles rising from gigantic 
cliffs, deep ravines, and endless forests, pretty little inter- 
vales and Ideal camping and fishing nooks. Or further In, 
beyond Mt. Washburn and the Tower Falls where com- 
paratively few go, he will find deep groves and gorgeous 
mountain scenery. Beyond Yellowstone Lake he can 
penetrate to the benign Tetons walling the Park to the 
southeast. He can take his own "grub" and horses, and 
lose sight of hotels and schedules for a month, if he likes. 
He is not required, as at Glacier, to hire a guide if he 
wishes to camp. Yellowstone's chief charm to me Is not 
so much Its beauty nor its wonders as that It Is, pre- 
eminently, the People's Park. Founded the earliest of 
any national park, when outdoor life was more of a 
novelty than it is today, and far less organized a sport, 
it follows a laisser alter course. And the people ap- 
preciate and make use of it. Whole families camp from 
one end to the other of the Park, using its open-air 




CAMPING NEAR YELLOWSTONE PARK. 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 329 

ovens to cook the fish which they catch in its lakes and 
streams. They know far more of its charm than the 
tourists who buy their five-day excursions from the rail- 
roads, and don't move a hand to feed or convey them- 
selves from the time they enter at Gardiner to the time 
they leave at Cody. 

I have had experience both ways, once as a personally 
conducted tourist and once as a human being. With our 
own car we covered the sight-seeing far more easily and 
quickly than by bus, with the advantage of being able to 
linger as long as we pleased over the fascinating mud- 
holes blub-blubbing restfully by a tardily performing 
geyser, or in some out-of-the-way forest where the trip- 
per never drags his dusty feet. Cars herd together in 
enticing groves, and their owners exchange destinations 
and food and confidences about their offspring with an un- 
suspiciousness lacking at the big hotels. Toby and I 
proved the efficacy of the old adage about the early bird 
catching the worm, one morning when we camped near 
the Great Falls. Our wide-awake neighbors from the 
wide-awake West got up and caught the worms, then 
caught the fish, while their slug-abed Eastern neighbors 
lay in their tents till the sun was high. When we emerged, 
they presented us with their surplus of four large trout, 
crisply fried in cornmeal and still piping hot. The early 
bird has my sincere endorsement every time, so long as I 
do not have to be one. 

Still I think some improvements could be made in 
Yellowstone. I never go there without getting com- 
pletely exhausted chasing geysers, — rushing from one 
which should have spouted but didn't, in time to reach 
the other end of the Park just too late to see another go 



330 WESTWARD HOBOES 

off, only to miss a magnificent eruption somewhere else. 
Or else I arrive, to learn that some geyser which managed 
to keep its mouth shut for a decade went off with a bang 
just yesterday, and another rare one is scheduled for the 
week after I leave. 

They really need a good young efficiency engineer 
to rearrange the schedule of geysers according to loca- 
tion, so that one could progress easily and naturally 
from one to the other. One first class geyser should per- 
form every day. Then the bears ought to be organized. 
You are always meeting someone who just saw the cutest 
little black cub down the road, but when you hurry back 
he has departed. So with the grizzlies ; they never come 
out to feed on the tempting hotel garbage the evenings 
you are in the neighborhood. Only Old Faithful keeps 
up her performances every two hours, as if she realized 
that without her sense of responsibility and system the 
Park would go all to pieces. But you can't work a will- 
ing geyser to death, which is what is happening to Old 
Faithful. They ought to arrange to have some geyser 
with an easy schedule, — say the one which goes off every 
twenty years, — stop loafing on the job, and give Old 
Faithful a much deserved vacation. 

Having "done" Yellowstone far more comfortably 
with the car in three days than we could have in six with- 
out it, we left on the fourth day for Glacier. The road 
improved vastly as we entered Montana. Both the Red 
and Yellowstone Trails were well made and kept in 
excellent condition. We skimmed over a beautiful coun- 
try. Bold and free hills, soft brown in color and the tex- 
ture of velours spread below us. The road curved just 
enough for combined beauty and safety, and was well 




GRAM) CANYON, YELLOWSTONE PARK. 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 331 

marked most of the way. We mistakenly chose the 
shorter route to Glacier Park entrance, instead of taking 
the more roundabout but far more beautiful drive 
through Kalispell. It is a mistake most motorists make 
sooner or later, in the fever to save time. But to 
compensate we had a glimpse of Browning, half Cana- 
dian, its streets full of Indians, half-breeds and cowboys 
dressed almost as gayly as the redmen and their squaws. 
Some garage helper there made the usual mistake of 
saying "left" and pointing right, with the result that our 
prairie road suddenly vanished and we were left in the 
midst of a ploughed track which had not yet fulfilled its 
intention of becoming a road. For the next twelve miles 
to the Park we went through wild gyrations, now leaping 
stumps, now dropping a clear two feet or more, or tilting 
above a deep furrow or a tangle of roots. Once more we 
marveled at the enduring powers of the staunch old lady. 
Glacier Park is not primarily a motorist's park, as is 
Yellowstone. An excellent highway runs outside the 
Park along the range of bold peaks that guard the Black- 
feet reservation, and an interior road connects the en- 
trance with St. Mary's Lake and Many Glaciers, the rad- 
iating point for most of the trail rides. To run a ma- 
chine past these barriers of solid peaks would be nearly 
impossible, yet there are still extensions of the mileage 
of motoring roads which can and probably will be made. 
Tourists with their own cars can do as we did, cover what 
roads are already accessible, then leave their car at Many 
Glaciers. There they can take the many trail trips, either 
afoot or on horseback, over the glorious passes from 
which the whole world may be seen ; climb ridges and cross 
mountain brooks, ice cold from melting glaciers; or look 



332 WESTWARD HOBOES 

down from Gunslght or Grinnell or Mt, Henry into 
passes where chain after chain of exquisite lakes lie half 
a mile below. 

Nowhere else have I seen such a wilderness of various 
kinds of beauty, dizzy ravines and dainty nooks, peaks 
and precipices with a hundred feet of snow and unmelted 
ice packed about them, and the other side of the moun- 
tain glowing with dog-tooth violets, or blue with acres of 
forget-me-nots. Fuzzy white-topped Indian plumes bor- 
der the snow. Icebergs float on lakes just beyond them. 
Mountain goats make white specks far up a wall of gran- 
ite, and deer cross one's path in the lowlands, which are 
a tangle of vines and flowers in the midst of pine forests. 
Over a narrow ridge dividing two valleys, each linking 
lakes till they fade into the blue of hill and sky, we ride 
to an idyllic pasture surrounded by mountain peaks, for 
nowhere in the Park, again unlike Yellowstone, can you 
go without being in the shadow of some benign giant. 
There is, as the parched Arizonans say, "a world of 
water," — little trickles of streams far up toward the sky, 
melting from aeon-old glaciers which freeze again above 
them; roaring swashbuckling rivers and cascades, such 
as you see near Going-to-the-Sun, and the double falls of 
Two Medicine; placid sun-flecked little pools, reflecting 
only the woods, broad lakes black as night, mirroring 
every ripple and stir above them, lakes so cold you freeze 
before you can wade out far enough to swim, yet full of 
trout; and belting the whole park, a chain of long lakes 
and quiet rivers. 

The center of the Park is the corral in front of the big 
hotel at Many Glaciers, where Lake McDermott mirrors 
a dozen mountains. From this point trails radiate in all 




GLACIER PARK, MONTANA. 
You can go nowhere in the park without being in the shadow of some benign giant. 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 333 

directions, varying in length from three hours to three 
days. 

Nature is nowhere more fresh and delightful than 
when seen from the trails of Glacier Park, — and as for 
human nature ! I don't know which is more engrossing, 
— the tourist or the guides. Personally I lean toward the 
guides, for the subtler flavor of personality is theirs. 
They can be unconsciously funny without being ridiculous, 
which the tourist cannot be. And they have an element 
of romance, real or carelessly cultivated, which no tourist 
has to any other tourist. What each thinks of the other 
you hear expressed now and then. 

"You mightn't think it, but some of those chaps are 
pretty bright," said a lecturer of a Middle Western cir- 
cuit to me, as he tried to mount his horse from the 
right. 

"They sent us over that trail with a dozen empties and 
twenty head of tourists," I heard one guide tell another, 
with an unconsciousness that cut deep. 

Every morning at eight the riderless horses come 
galloping down the road to Many Glaciers, urged on by 
a guide whose feelings, judging by his riding, seem to be 
at a boiling point. In a half hour the tourists straggle 
out, some in formal riding clothes, some in very informal 
ones, and some dressed as they think the West expects 
every man to dress. The assembled guides with wary 
glances "take stock" of their day's "outfit," — always a 
gamble. With uncanny instinct they sort the experienced 
riders from the "doods" and lead each to his appropriate 
mount. These indifferent looking, lean, swarthy men sit 
huddled on the corral rail, and exchange quiet mono- 
syllables which would mean nothing to the "dood" if he 



334 WESTWARD HOBOES 

could overhear. With their tabloid lingo they could talk 
about you to your face, — though most of them are too 
well-mannered, — and from their gravely courteous words 
you would never suspect it. Guides are past masters of 
overtones. Their wit is seldom gay and robust, — always 
gently ironic. 

I saw a very stout lady go through the Great Adven- 
ture of mounting, plunging forward violently and throw- ■ 
ing her right leg forward over the pommel. It was a mas- 
terly effort which her guide watched with impassive 
face, encouraging her at the finish with a gently whis- 
pered, "Fine, lady! And next time I bet you could do it 
even better by throwing your leg backwards." 

He was the same one who soothed a nervous and inex- 
perienced rider who dreaded the terrors of Swiftcurrent 
Pass. 

"Now, lady, just hang your reins over the horn, and 
leave it to the horse." 

"Heavens," she replied, " will he go down that terrible 
trail all alone?" 

"Oh, no, lady. He'll take you right along with him." 

There is always one tourist whose tardiness holds up 
the party, and one morning it chanced I was that one. 
The guide — it was Bill — handed me my reins and ad- 
justed my stirrups with a with-holding air. As we rode up 
Gunsight, I heard him humming a little tune. A word 
now and then whetted my curiosity. 

"What are you singing. Bill?" All guides have mono- 
syllabic names, as Ed, Mike, Jack, Cal, and Tex. 

Very impersonally Bill repeated the song in a cracked 
tenor : 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 335 

"I wrangled my horses, was feelin' fine, 
Couldn't git my doods up till half past nine. 
I didn't cuss, and I didn't yell, 
But we lit up the trail like a bat out of hell." 

"A very nice song. Bill. Did you compose it your- 
self?" 

"No, ma'am. It's just a song." 

They have a way of taking their revenge, neat and 
bloodless, but your head comes off in their hand just the 
same. Bill had a honeymoon couple going to Sperry, and 
taking a dislike to the groom, whom he thought "too 
fresh," he placed him at the tail of the queue, and the 
bride, who was pretty, behind himself. The sight of 
Bill chatting gaily with his bride of a day, and his bride 
chatting gaily with Bill, became more than the groom 
could bear, and in spite of resentful glances from those he 
edged past on the narrow trail, he worked his way pa- 
tiently up to a position behind the bride, only to receive 
a cold glare from Bill, and the words, "Against the rules 
of the Park to change places in line. Mister." Bill was 
not usually so punctilious about Park rules, but the groom 
did not know this, and suffered Bill to dismount and lead 
his horse back to the rear, after which he returned to 
his conversation with the pretty bride. This play contin- 
ued throughout the day with no change of expression or 
loss of patience on the part of Bill. Glacier Park is no 
place to go on a honeymoon. 

At Glacier, society has no distinctions, but it has three 
divisions, — excluding, of course, the Blackfeet Indians to 
whom the Park originally belonged. They are the 
"doods," the guides, and the "hash-slingers." Each 



336 WESTWARD HOBOES 

guide, as he slants lop-sldedly over a mile deep cut-bank 
keeps a pleased eye on some lithe figure in the neatest of 
boots and Norfolk coats, whom he has picked for his 
"dood girl." He favors her with a drink from his can- 
teen, long anecdotes about his "boss," or if he is hard hit 
and she is a good rider, with offers of a ride on his "top- 
boss." But when he has helped his tourists dismount, 
limping and sore at the foot of a twenty mile descent, he 
gallops his string of "empties" to the corral, and in half 
an hour is seen roping some dainty maiden in Swiss cos- 
tume, — playing his tinkling notes on the Eternal Tri- 
angle. 

When they do cast an eye in your direction it is some- 
thing to remember. There was Tex, — or was his name 
Sam? — who took us up to Iceberg. He never looked 
back at us, nor showed any of the kittenishness common to 
the male at such moments, but every five minutes issued 
a solitary sentence, impersonal and, like a jigsaw puzzle, 
meaningless until put together, 

"I never had no girl." 

We turned three switchbacks. 

"Don't suppose no girl would ever look at me." 

Five minutes passed. He looked over the ears of his 
roan top-horse. 

"I got a little boss home I gentled. She was a wild 
boss, and only me could ride her. But I rode her good." 

He stopped to lengthen a tourist's stirrups, and mount- 
ed again. 

"I got a silver-mounted bridle cost $500 when it was 
new. I bought it cheap. Has one of those here mono- 
grams on it, J. W. and two silver hearts." 

"Are they your initials?" 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 337 

"No, ma'am. They stood for something else — George 
Washington maybe." 

A pause. "I taught that little pony of mine to do 
tricks." 

A momentous pause. "If I had a girl I liked real good, 
I'd give her that hoss and saddle." 

We had nearly reached the top of the trail. 

"I'd kinder like an Eastern girl that could ride a hoss 
good." 

And then the approach direct. 

"Onct I had a diamond neck pin. I aint got it now. I 
pawned it. But I got a picter of myself wearin' that pin 
you could have." 

That night, he sauntered to the hotel, and leaned 
against the door, and looked at the moon, which was 
full. 

"A great night," he said. And a pause. "One of these 
here nights when a feller just feels like " 

I thought he had stopped, but sometime later he re- 
sumed, still regarding the moon. 

"Like kinder spoonin'." 

But it takes a moon to bring out the softer side of the 
guide nature, and they waste little time in thoughts of 
"kinder spoonin' " when they have a party on a difficult 
trail. There they are nurse-maids, advisers and grooms, 
entertainers and disciplinarians, all in an outwardly casual 
manner. As they swing in their saddles up the trail, what 
they are thinking has much to do with whom they are 
guiding. We saw all kinds of "doods" while at Glacier, 
and some would have driven me mad, but I never yet 
saw a guide lose his temper. 

"Honest," confided Johnson, — Johnson is an old 



338 WESTWARD HOBOES 

timer who limps from an ancient quarrel with a grizzly, 
and wears overalls and twisted braces and humps together 
in the saddle, — "honest, there's some of them you 
couldn't suit not If you had the prettiest pair of wings 
ever was." 

There was the gentleman who appeared in very loud 
chaps and bandana and showed his knowledge of west- 
ern life, regardless of the fact that Toby's horse and mine 
just behind him were showing a tendency to buck, by 
shouting, "Hl-yi" and bringing down his Stetson with a 
bang on the neck of the spiritless hack the guides had 
sardonically bestowed on him. 

There was the fond mother who held up the whole 
party to Logan Pass while she pleaded with her twelve- 
year-old son to wear one of her veils to keep off the flies. 
Poor little chap ! His red face showed the tortures he 
endured, and the guide turned away and pretended not 
to hear. 

There was the old lady and her spinster daughter 
from Philadelphia who took a special camping trip high 
into the mountains where crystal streams start from their 
parent glaciers, and insisted on the guide boiling every 
drop of water before they would drink It. And when they 
left they sent all the saddle bags to be dry cleaned, there- 
by ruining them. 

There was also Mr. Legion, who had never been on a 
horse before, who complained all the twenty-six miles up 
and down hill that his stirrups were too long, and too 
short, that his horse wouldn't go, and that he jolted when 
he trotted, that the saddle was too hard and that the 
guide went so fast nobody could keep up with him. It 
was Mrs. Legion who got dizzy at the steep places and 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 339 

stopped the procession on the worst switchback while 
she got off and walked, or insisted on taking her eight- 
year-old child along, and then frightened both the child 
and herself into hysteria when they gazed down on those 
lake-threaded valleys straight beneath them. 

There was the lady who took a walk up a tangled 
mountain-side to pick flowers, and got lost and kept the 
whole outfit hunting for her an entire night. 

But there were many as well who were good-natured 
and good sports, whether they had little or much experi- 
ence in riding and roughing it, — many who acquired here 
a life-long habit for outdoors. 

Having seen all these sorts and conditions of "doods," 
we tried not to be vain when Bill introduced us to his 
friend Curly in these words. The fact that Bill had 
visited Lewis', the only place in the Park where there was 
a saloon, had no effect on our pride, for Bill had tightly 
kept his opinion to himself, heretofore, and in vino Veri- 
tas. 

"Girls," he said from his horse, his dignity not a 
whit impaired because of the purple neck-handkerchief 
pinned to his Stetson, because "the boys said I didn't look 

quite wild enough," "Girls, this is Curly. Curly, this 

is the girls. You'll like them, Curly, they aint helpless!" 

Praise is as sweet to me as to most, but those words of 
Bill's, even with the evidence of the bandana, meant 
more than the wildest flattery. 

Of all the "dood-wranglers" in the Park, Bill was pos- 
sessed of the most whimsical personality. He had been 
our guide several summers ago, the year the draft bill 
was passed. Bill always spoke in a slow drawl, his words, 
unhurried and ceaseless, forming into an unconscious 



340 WESTWARD HOBOES 

blank verse frequently at odd variance with their import. 
Could Edgar Lee Masters do better than this? 

"I had a legacy from my uncle, 

The only one in the fam'ly had money. 

They quarreled over the will. 

When I got my share 

It was just eighty dollars. 

I bought me a saddle with it, 

Then I got gamblin', 

Pawned the saddle, 

Tore up the tickets 

And throwed them away." 

"I was never in jail but onct," he told us, rather sur- 
prised at his own restraint, "and then I was drunk. I was 
feelin' fine, — rode my boss on the sidewalk, shot off my 
gun and got ten days. Was you ever drunk? No? 
Well, beer's all right if you want a drink, but if you 
want to get drunk, try champagne. You take it one day, 
and rense out your mouth the next, and you're as drunk 
as you were the night before." 

When the draft came, no high sentiments of patriotism 
flowed in vers libre from Bill's lips. 

"There's places in the Grand Canyon I know of where 
I reckon I could hide out, and no draft officer could find 
me till the war was over," he declared. "I'd rather be a 
live coward than a dead hero any day." 

But he went, and of course was drafted into the in- 
fantry, he who saddled his horse to cross the street, and 
who had said earnestly, "Girls, if you want to make a 
cow-puncher sore, set him afoot." Like several other 
of his "doods" who had witnessed the tragedy of his 
being drafted, when he went about with lugubrious fore- 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 341 

bodings and refused to be cheered, I sent him a sweater, 
and received promptly a letter of thanks. 

"I thought everybody had forgotten me, judging by 
my feelings. I am the worst disgusted cowboy that ever 
existed. Existed is right at the present. This is no 
life for a cowboy that has been used to doing as he 
pleases. Here you do as they please. They keep me 
walking all day long. They ball me out, and make me 
like it. I dassent fight and they wont let me leave. Say 
— what complexion is butter? I aint seen any sense I left 
Glacier. I've eat macaroni till I look like a Dago and 
canned sammin till I dassent cover up my head at night 
for fear I would smell my own breath. If this training 
camp don't kill me there will be no chance for the Ger- 
mans, but I'd sooner a German would get me than die by 
inches in this here sheep corral." 

When Toby and I reached the Park, I inquired for Bill 
from one of his buddies who was a guide that year, and 
learned that his fortunes had mended from this peak of 
depression. He had been transferred to the remount 
department, and when a mule broke his arm his home- 
sickness departed, and he was filled with content. He 
even clamored to be sent over to "scalp a few Huns." 

"He did things anyone else would be court-martialed 
for," his buddy related, "but Bill always had an alibi. 
When we were ordered out on a hike, Bill would go 
along, taking pains to march on the outside. When we 
came to a culvert, he would drop over the edge, hide 
awhile and go back to his bunk for the day. They never 
did find him out. 

"The mud was a foot deep in the corral, and once 
when Bill was roping a mule, the mule got away, dragging 



342 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Bill after. He splashed in, and when we see him again 
he was mud all over. And mad. The air was blue. He 
rushed into the Major's office just as he was. The Major 
was a stiff old bird every one else was afraid of. But 
not Bill. 

"'Look at me,' he sputtered. 'Look at me!' And 
then he swore some more. 'Look at this new uniform!' 

" 'What do you mean,' says the Major, drawing him- 
self up and gettin' red in the face. 'Are you drunk?' 

" 'No,' says Bill, very Innocent, 'do I have to be drunk 
to talk to you?' 

"But he got his new uniform. Any of the rest of us 
would have been stood up against a wall at sunrise. An- 
other time a consignment of shoes came in that was 
meant for a race of giants. None of us could wear them. 
Bill was awful proud of his feet, too. He swore he would 
get a pair to fit. So he put his on, and went to see the 
Major. 

" 'Look at these shoes,' he says. 

" 'They look all right to me,' says the Major. 'Seems 
like a pretty good fit.' 

" 'Yes, but see here,' says Bill. And he took off the 
shoes, and there was his other shoes underneath. He 
got a pair that fit, right away. Nobody else did." 

Such Initiative otherwise applied might well make a 
captain of industry of him, were it not that Bill Is typical 
of his kind, his creed "for to admire an' for to see, for 
to behold this world so wide." Free and foot loose they 
will be, rejecting the bondage of routine that makes of a 
resourceful man, as they all are, a captain of Industry. 
The world is their playground, not their schoolroom. 
Independent they will be of discipline. 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 343 

"Aren't you afraid of losing your job?" we asked a 
guide who confided some act of insubordination. 

"Well, I come here looking for a job," he answered. 

As Bill put it, in his rhythmic way, — "The Lord put me 
on earth to eat and sleep and ride the ponies, and I ain't 
figurin' on doin' nothin' else." 

And he finished, "There's just three things in the 
world I care about, — my hawss, and my rope and my 
hat." 

The genius of the west lies, I think, in its power of 
objectiveness. The east is subjective. When an east- 
erner tells a story, he locates himself emotionally with 
much concern. He may be vague as to time and place, 
but you know his moods and impressions with subtle exact- 
ness. Every westerner I ever knew begins his first sen- 
tence of a story with his location and objective. Then 
he adds dates and follows with an anecdote of bare facts, 
untinged by his emotions. His audience fills in the chinks 
with what he does not say. For example, a guide, telling 
of a trip, might say 

"I was headed north over Eagle Pass with an outfit of 
geologists in a northwest storm. The animals had just 
come in from winter feedin' the day before. My top- 
hawss had went lame on me, and I had to borrow a cayuse 
from an Indian. I had a pack outfit of burros and was 
drivin' three empties that give out on us. We was short 
of grub, and twenty miles to make to the trader's. The 
dudes had wore setfasts on their hawsses, and when I 
ast them could they kinder trot along, the ladies would 
hit their saddles with a little whip and say 'gittap, 
hawsie.' " 

Only bald facts are told in that narrative, mainly unin- 



344 WESTWARD HOBOES 

telligible unless you know what the facts connote. Told 
to a fellow guide they bring forth nods of silent sym- 
pathy. Many experiences of the same sort help him to 
see the huddled, inexpert figures of saddle-sore dudes, 
some clad piecemeal, some in the extreme of appropriate- 
ness. He knows the exasperating slowness of horses 
drained of the last ounce of endurance. He, too, has 
tried to urge on a miscellaneous collection of tired 
horses, burros and dudes, all wandering in different direc- 
tions, at differing gaits. He knows the self-respecting 
guide's chagrin at losing the pride of his life, — his top- 
horse, and he knows the condition of Indian cayuses at the 
end of winter. He has felt unutterable disgust at having 
to ride a hack. He knows the necessity of keeping patient 
and courteous under irritation, and the responsibility of 
getting his party of tenderfeet over a bad divide in a 
storm with night coming and food scarce, when a slight 
mishap may accumulate more serious disasters. He knows 
how weary burros wander in circles so persistently that the 
most patient guide, — and all guides are patient, they have 
to be, — wants to murder them brutally. And the sickening 
scrape of girths on raw, bleeding sores, requiring tender 
care after treatment of weeks. He knows every party has 
its foolish, ineffectual members who tire the first mile out, 
and after that sink into limp dejection, remarking plain- 
tively and often, "This horse is no good," as they give 
him a light flick which hits leather or saddle roll, but 
never the horse, and kick at him without touching him. 
And geologists! One or two, he knows, can ride and 
camp and are as good as the guides, but others will want 
to stop the outfit on the worst spot in the trail, and nearly 




TWO MEDICINE LAKE, GLACIER PARK, MONTANA. 




WRANGLING HORSES, GLACIER PARK, MONTANA. 



ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 345 

cause a stampede gathering rocks which the guide must 
secure to the already overweighty pack. 

But see how much longer it takes a story Eastern 
fashion. Once you have the key to the Westerner's nar- 
rative, you get the vividness of these compressed facts. 
If you have not, he might as well be talking Sanscrit as 
colloquial English of one and two syllables. You listen 
and wonder what has happened to your mind: you seem 
to understand everything he is saying, yet you understand 
nothing. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE NAIL-FILE AND THE CHIPPEWA 

AT Many Glaciers they advised us to visit the lovely 
Waterton Lakes lying in the Canadian extension 
of Glacier Park. 

"There's only one bad place, — north of Babb. It's 
flooded for some miles, but all you have to do is climb the 
canal bank, and run along the top." 

As people were always advising us to undertake some 
form of acrobatics, we stored the canal bank in the back 
of our minds, and started for Babb and Canada. 

Babb proved as short of population as of syllables. 
We went the length of the town, and encountered only 
one building, — the postofllice and store. That its popu- 
lace was treated more generously in the matter of syl- 
lables we discovered by idly reading the mailing list of 
Blackfeet citizens, pasted on the wall. Among Babb's 
most prominent residents are Killfirst Stingy, Mary Ear- 
rings, Susie Swimsunder, Ada Calflooking, Cecile 
Weaselwoman, Xavier Billetdoux, Joe Scabbyrobe, Alex 
Biglodgepole and Josephine Underotter Owlchild. 

I have been told that many Indian tribes name a child 
from the greatest event in the life of its oldest living 
relative. When the child reaches maturity, he earns a 
name for himself by some characteristic achievement, 
goaded to it, no doubt, by the horrors of his given name. 
Thus by a glance at the census lists we are able to read 

346 



THE NAIL-FILE AND THE CHIPPEWA 347 

past history, and compare the amorous agitations of 
Xavier Billetdoux' granddaddy with the bucolic and se- 
rene existence of Ada Calflooking's great-aunt. Not a 
bad way of checking up one's ancestry against one's own 
worth. If we followed the same system, Cornelius 
Rowed Washington across the Delaware might be rechris- 
tened C. Shimmyfoot, while Adolph Foreclosedthe- 
widow'smortgage might earn the nobler surname of En- 
dowsahospital. It is really a remarkable system of short- 
hand autobiography, enabling a complete stranger to 
tell whether one belongs to a good family going downhill, 
or a poor one coming uphill, or a mediocre at a stand- 
still. How many a near Theda Bara who would like to 
be named Cecile Weaselwoman would have to be content 
as Mary Ear-rings. How many a purse-proud Biglodge- 
pole would have to confess his grandfather was named 
Scabbyrobe. Perhaps this is the reason we leave such 
nomenclature to the heathen Indian. 

Reflecting thus, Toby and I amused ourselves with re- 
naming ourselves and our friends, until we reached a 
place where some altruistic citizen had inundated the 
road in order to irrigate his patch of land. Here we were 
supposed to take to the top of the canal, but the bank was 
high, narrow and shaly. It looked too much like a con- 
spiracy against both us and the canal, so we disregarded 
our advice and skirted the open land. By leaving the 
road altogether and keeping to the hills we avoided most 
of the bog, and got through the rest with a little maneu- 
vering. A mile further we learned that the canal bank 
had given way under a car the previous day, and carried 
car and occupants into the water. 

The beautiful Flathead Mountains had faded away 



348 WESTWARD HOBOES 

behind us, leaving a prairie country of no charm, dry 
and burnt. At the border, as at Mexico, we found our 
little customhouse less formal and more shabby than our 
neighbor's, but at both we received clearance and cour- 
teous treatment. When we said we came from Mass- 
achusetts, the Canadian agent sighed, 

"Massachusetts ! What do you see in a God-forsaken 
hole like this to tempt you from such a state? I wish I 
could go there, — or anywhere away from this place.'! 

Everywhere we heard the same refrain. Three years 
of killing drought had scorched the treeless plains to a 
cinder. The wheat, promise and hope of Alberta, had 
failed, and immigrants who had gone there expecting to 
return to the old country in a few years with a fortune, 
were so completely ruined they could neither go back nor 
forward, but saw dismal years of stagnation before them. 

There are more cheerful places than Alberta in which 
to face bankruptcy. So near the border, this part of 
Canada is half American, — American with a cockney ac- 
cent. But it is newer and rawer than our own west by a 
decade or two, with less taste apparent, less prosperity, 
more squalid shiftlessness. The section through which 
we drove had been mainly conquered by the Mormons, 
driven into Canada when the United States was most in- 
hospitable to their sect. They in turn have converted 
many of the immigrants from the old country. The 
church or tithe lands make sharp contrast in their pros- 
perity, their thousands of sleek, blooded cattle and irri- 
gated fields to the forlorn little settlements of indi- 
viduals. As every Mormon pays a tenth of all he has to 
his church it is easy to understand this contrast. 

In our six months of travel we had driven over the 



THE NAIL-FILE AND THE CHIPPEWA 349 

reservations of the Papago, Pima and Maricopa, the 
Apache, Hopi, Havasupai, Navajo, Ute, Piute, Pueblo, 
Shoshone, Blackfeet and Flatheads. We were now on 
the Blood Indian reservation, though we saw few in- 
habitants. Those we saw were red-skinned and tall, re- 
sembling the other Northern tribes. The country grew 
less inhabited. We met no other cars and few people. 
Fifty miles north of Browning, our last town, we came to 
a lumber camp, and seven miles further our car quietly 
ceased to move, and rested in peace on a hillside. 

Since its wetting in Nambe creek, the ignition had been 
prone to such sudden stops and starts. From past ex- 
perience we knew that the ignition system must be com- 
pletely taken apart, exposing its innermost parts to the 
daylight. All I knew about it was summed up in my 
brother's parting advice, "Never monkey with your igni- 
tion." All Toby knew was that Bill of Santa Fe had 
taken it apart, done something to it, put it together again, 
and it ran. So we decided to follow Bill's procedure as 
far as we could, and began by taking it apart. That 
went very well until we discovered some covetous person 
had removed all the tiny tools used in operating on this 
part of the engine, leaving us only a monkey wrench and a 
large pair of pincers. Toby nearly stood on her head 
trying to unscrew very little screws with the big wrench, 
and progressed but slowly, as she had to change her entire 
position with each quarter turn. 

After about an hour we had every nut and screw in the 
forward part of the engine in rows on the running board. 
My task was to take the parts as Toby unscrewed them, 
and lay them neatly from left to right, so that we should 



350 WESTWARD HOBOES 

know in what order to replace them. Then I glanced at 
the remains which Toby had succeeded in uncovering. 

"The distributor needs cleaning," I said expertly, 
thereby greatly impressing Toby. I remembered Bill had 
said the same thing, but for the life of me I couldn't re- 
member what the distributor was. By opening the cock 
of our tank, and holding a tin cup beneath, catching a 
drop at a time we managed in another hour to get enough 
gasoline to bathe the affected parts, as druggist's direc- 
tions say. 

So far, not a hitch. And then a little wire flapped 
before our eyes which seemingly had no connection with 
any other part. Toby thought it belonged in one place, 
and for the sake of argument, I held out for another, but 
neither of us was sure enough to make a point of our 
opinion. Meanwhile the car could not start until this 
wire was hitched to something, yet we dared not risk a 
short-circuit by connecting it to the wrong screw. So we 
stood still in the hot, dusty road and waited for some- 
thing to turn up. 

"I have a hunch, Toby," I said, "that when we really 
give up and go for help, the old lady will begin running 
again." 

"Then you'd better start at once," said Toby. 

"No, it won't be as simple as that. We shall have to 
work for what we get." 

At this moment a Ford containing four men drew up 
and stopped. We explained our trouble. 

"You took it apart without knowing how to put it to- 
gether again?" said one of them. They exchanged 
glances which said "How like a woman!" 

"When we took it apart," answered Toby with 



THE NAIL-FILE AND THE CHIPPEWA 351 

hauteur, "we knew how to put it together again, but so 
many things have happened in the meantime that the 
exact process has slipped our minds. But if you will ex- 
plain the principles of this ignition system to us I think we 
can manage." 

The man muttered something about a Ford not having 
one, and drove on. Like most men, he was willing to 
stay as long as he could appear In a superior light, but no 
longer. 

Though they were poor consolation, the horizon looked 
very lonely after they left. Later In the afternoon, two 
Indian boys with fish-poles over their shoulders sauntered 
by. Having exhausted our combined knowledge we had 
decided to give up and telephone to the nearest garage. 
I hastened to them, not knowing when we should again 
see a human soul. 

"How far away Is the nearest garage?" I asked them. 

The younger boy giggled, but the older answered in 
very good, soft-spoken English, "At Browning, fifty 
miles away." 

A hundred dollars for towing, and days of delay! I 
caught at a straw. 

"Is there by any chance an electrician back at the lum- 
ber camp?" 

"No, ma'am." 

Then noticing my despair, he added diffidently, "I 
studied electricity at Carlisle. Perhaps I can help you." 

Our guardian angels fluttered so near we could almost 
see their wings. Here was Albert Gray, for so he was 
hight, transplanted from his Chippewa reservation for a 
two days' visit to his Blood cousins, for the sole purpose 
of rescuing us from our latest predicament. Efficiency 



352 WESTWARD HOBOES 

and economy must have been the watchword of those 
ministering spirits of ours, for not only did they send 
the only electrician within fifty miles, but then sent one 
whose knowledge, combined with our own, was just suffi- 
cient. I do not believe Albert really knew a fuse from a 
switchbox, but he did remember one essential we had for- 
gotten, — that the points should be a sixteenth of an inch 
apart. But without tools he said he could do nothing. 
So we proffered a nail-file, by happy Inspiration, with 
which he ground the points. We screwed together all the 
parts, connected the mysterious wire by a counting-out 
rime, and turned the engine. Nothing moved. 

I turned my back on the exasperating car, and started 
to walk the seven miles back to the lumber camp. Then, 
on remembering my hunch it seemed as if all conditions 
were now fulfilled, so I returned, put my foot on the 
starter, — and the engine hummed. And until we reached 
Boston again, It never ceased to hum. 

A prouder moment neither Toby nor I ever had, when 
by grace of a Chippewa and a nail-file we monkeyed with 
our ignition fifty miles from a garage, — and conquered it. 

I shall always remember slow spoken, polite Albert 
Gray. Like Lucy of the same sur-name, he made oh, the 
dlfiference to me I 

The good looking garage helper at Cardston met us 
with a beaming smile. 

"I've filled your radiator," he said, "and your can- 
teen, and put in oil and gas, and I've infatuated all your 
tires." 

It was this same delightful Mr. Malaprop of whom 



THE NAIL-FILE AND THE CHIPPEWA 353 

we inquired, discussing various automobiles, "Do you 
like the Marmon?'' 

"I'm not one myself," he answered cautiously, "but my 
father-in-law is, and I get on pretty good with him." 

Through his connectlons-in-law he obtained for us the 
privilege of seeing the interior of the new Mormon 
Temple, which is to rival Salt Lake's. Our unfailing 
luck had brought us here at the only Interval when Gen- 
tiles are allowed to enter a Mormon church, after com- 
pletion and before Its dedication. This little town of not 
more than five thousand Inhabitants, surrounded by the 
brown, parched prairie, is dominated by a million dollar 
edifice, far more beautiful than the parent Temple In 
Utah, and magnificent enough for any city. A perfect 
creation in Itself, fitted like the Temple of Solomon with 
matched marble and granite brought from the ends of 
the earth, it looks strangely out of keeping with the 
bare shacks and ugly little frontier shanties surrounding 
It. Its architecture was modified from Aztec designs. 
The young Salt Lake Mormons whose plans won the 
award In competition with many renowned architects 
achieved an arrestlngly original building of massive dig- 
nity and grace, managing at the same time to conform to 
the exacting requirements of Mormon symbolism. No 
two rooms are built on the same level, but rise in a 
gradual ascent to the roof, from which one may look 
miles over the rolling plains of Alberta. This require- 
ment, which must have caused the designers and builders 
much anguish, is meant to symbolize the soul's ascent 
from a gross and carnal to a spiritual life. The ground 
floor has many dressing-rooms where those who "work 
for the dead" change from street clothes to the garments 



354 WESTWARD HOBOES 

prescribed by Mormon ritual. Above are rooms paneled 
in the most costly woods, — Circassian walnut, tulip- 
wood, mahogany and rosewood, — for the use of the 
church officials, and beyond these, larger rooms called 
"Earth," "Purgatory," "Heaven," decorated with beauti- 
ful mural paintings with appropriate scenes. "Earth" held 
great attractions for me, with its frieze of jungle beasts 
threading their way through gnarled forests,— an able 
and artistic piece of work, done by Prof. Evans of Salt 
Lake. The stout little Cockney Mormon who accom- 
panied the Bishop and ourselves through the Temple gave 
us this Information, though from his lips it sounded like 
"Prof. Heavens, of the Heart Department." We passed 
on from Earth to the assembly room In the center of the 
Temple, a magnificent chamber with an altar, where 
services are held and marriages performed. 

"Here, if you wish," the Bishop said, "you can be 
sealed to eternity." 

Toby who had all along, I think, expected to be 
pounced on as a possible plural wife backed away from 
the altar, but the Bishop was speaking Impersonally. He 
explained that any Mormon happy In his present matri- 
monial venture (I use the singular, as polygamy is now 
illegal both In Canada and the United States) may extend 
that happiness to eternity, and Insure getting the same 
wife In Heaven by this ceremony. He himself had been 
sealed, — "the children sitting on each side of us In their 
white robes," — the ceremonial garment, — and was secure 
in the belief that his family happiness would continue 
after death. 

We broached with some hesitation the subject of poly- 




A iMORMUX IRRIGATED MLLAGE. 




| it£-LJ ^ '*£ S W i lHir"'yn__ ' 




mMi^. 



THE "MILLION DOLLAR ' MORMON TEMPLE AT CARDSTON, ALBERTA, CANADA. 



THE NAIL-FILE AND THE CHIPPEWA 355 

gamy. The Bishop readily took it up, declaring poly- 
gamy entirely abolished. 

"Even at its height, not more than three per cent of our 
men had plural wives," he said. 

"As few as that?" 

•Tes." 

"Then since the majority never sanctioned it, the 
Church has abolished it, and you yourself never prac- 
tised it, I suppose you consider it wrong?" 

"Oh, no — I shouldn't call it wrong. Why, it was the 
best advertising we could possibly have had. People 
heard of the Mormons all over the world, and began 
talking about them, — all because of polygamy. I don't 
suppose we should ever have become so prosperous and 
powerful without the free advertising it gave us. It 
enabled us to extend our faith to all corners of the earth. 
While each church has its parish, bishops, elders and 
presidents, our system is so complete that in three hours 
the Head of the church can communicate a mandate to 
the furthest missionary in Japan or India." 

"But it wasn't very good advertising, perhaps?" 

"Any advertising is good advertising, so long as it gets 
people talking." 

The way to Waterton Lakes, several hours from Card- 
ston, lay through the tithe lands of the Church, — a mile 
north, a mile west, and so on, with the monotonous regu- 
larity of section roads. Then suddenly emerging from 
the barren country, we found ourselves again in the 
Rockies. We motored past a chain of glassy mountain 
lakes, each one full to the brim with trout, so we had 
been told. The air sparkled; late July here in the north 
had the tang of autumn through the golden sun. Forests 



3s6 WESTWARD HOBOES 

of pine edged the shores of the lakes. The same sharply 
notched peaks we had known at Glacier Park guarded 
their solitude. This park, under the care of the Canadian 
government, lies in the hinterland of Glacier. Over Its 
ranges a pack train can make its way in a few days from 
one park to the other, and a still quicker route Is by the 
intermittent motorboat which carries passengers back 
and forth during the summer. By road it takes a day 
or more of rough prairie traveling. With much the 
same type of scenery as Glacier Park, though perhaps 
less dramatic, Waterton Lakes should be far more widely 
visited than they are. These two lovely parks, naturally 
a continuation of each other, should and could be easily 
linked more closely together. 

At present the accommodations of Waterton Lakes 
are far inferior to those of Glacier. A few ex-saloons 
(Alberta "went dry") offer sandwiches and near beer, 
but the gaudy paper decorations on the walls, covered 
with flies, and the inevitable assortment of toothpicks, 
catsup and dirty cruets on the soiled cloths, are successful 
destroyers of appetite. I was told that the railroad 
which had developed Glacier Park so Intelligently, build- 
ing the few necessary hotels with dignity and charm, of- 
fered to extend the developments to Waterton Lakes, 
but that Canada, fearing her tourists would thereby be 
diverted into the "States," jealously refused the offer. A 
short-sighted decision, certainly, for the flood of tourists 
coming from the States would have been far greater 
than that turned in the other direction. 

Toby and I pitched our little tent on a delightful 
pebbled beach, planning to stay several days. If the fish- 
ing were as good as it had been reported. But after a 



THE NAIL-FILE AND THE CHIPPEWA 357 

fruitless — or Ashless — afternoon of dangling our lines in 
the water, with no profit except the sight of the hills 
which guarded the blue sparkle, we returned to our tent 
at sunset with no prospect of food. We had depended 
too rashly upon our skill at angling. Hunger can take 
all the joy out of scenery. 

To tell the truth, sleeping in a tent and cooking our 
own meals had somewhat lost their charms. We pre- 
ferred a lumpy bed in a stuffy room to a hard bed on the 
ground; and second-rate meals served at a table some- 
one else had taken the trouble to prepare to third-rate 
meals prepared with greater trouble by ourselves. As 
we looked wearily at each other, each hoping the other 
would offer to make the beds and "rustle" for food, we 
suddenly realized that we were homesick. We had 
roughed it enough, and the flesh pots beckoned. 

"Let's go back to Cardston," I said. 

"Let's," said Toby, gladly. 

And on all that beauty of pure woods and clear sunset 
we turned and fled to civilization. Fifth-rate civiliza- 
tion it might be, in a province as crude and unlovely as 
was any part of our own West in the roaring eighties. 
For the first time in six months we had our backs to the 
setting sun, the sun which had dazzled our eyes every 
afternoon since we left the boat at Galveston. We were 
leaving the great, free West, "where a man can be a 
man, and a woman can be a woman," and we were going 
— home I 



CHAPTER XXV 

HOMEWARD HOBOES 

AT Santa Fe we had a worn tire retreaded. "It may 
last you a thousand miles," said the honest dealer. 
At the end of the thousand miles, the tire was in ribbons. 
We put it on the forward wheel and favored it all we 
could. In another thousand miles the canvas showed 
through the tread. Time went on, and a complete new 
set of tires went to the junk-heap, but the old retread 
still flaunted its tattered streamers. More than once, 
when both spare tires had collapsed, it carried us safely 
over long, desolate stretches. At last, when it had gone 
five or six thousand miles we ceased to worry. The con- 
viction came to my prophetic soul that it would take us 
home. And it did. It took us to Toby's door, and 
went flat as I turned into my own driveway. Thus did 
our guardian angels stay with us, like the guide's mule, 
to the end. 

Like tired horses whose heads are turned homeward, 
our pace accelerated steadily as we moved east. Each 
day we put two hundred miles or more behind us. Mon- 
tana, brown and parched like all the West, yet magnifi- 
cent in the tremendous proportions of its mountains and 
valleys, we left with regret. We followed the Great 
Northern to the bleak town of Havre, then dropped 
south to the perfidious Yellowstone Trail. Bits of the 
road were unexpectedly good; for the first time since 

358 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 359 

Houston the old lady's skirts hummed in the breeze. We 
unwillingly put hundreds of gophers to death. The 
roads here were honeycombed with their nests, and as 
we bore down on them they poked their silly heads up to 
be sacrificed or ran under our wheels by the gross. We 
learned to dread them, for each gopher-hole meant a 
sharp little jolt to the car, by which more than one spring- 
leaf was snapped. 

For several days we trailed forest fires. The whole 
state was so tindery that a lighted match might sweep it 
clear. Puffs of blue-white smoke blurred the sharp out- 
lines of the mountains and the air was warm with an acrid, 
smoky haze. Sometimes we passed newly charred forests 
with little tongues of flame still leaping at their edges, 
and once we barely crossed before a smouldering fire 
swept down a hillside and crossed the road where we 
had been a moment earlier. The people we met were in 
a state of passive depression after the ruin of the wheat 
at this last blow to their bank accounts. Some blamed 
the I. W. W. for the fires, but most of them spoke of 
this possibility with the caution one pins a scandal to an 
ugly neighbor in a small town. 

Montana's cities were also at the mercy of the I. W. 
W. The usual strikes were agitating at Butte, and at 
the two leading hotels of Great Falls, both perfectly ap- 
pointed, every waiter had gone on strike, and the cafe- 
terias were doing a rushing business. The chambermaids 
followed suit next day. Yet we liked Great Falls, and the 
kindred cities of Montana, sharp-edged, clearly focussed 
little towns, brisk and new, frankly ashamed of their un- 
Rexalled past, and making plans to build a skyscraper a 
week — in the future. 



36o WESTWARD HOBOES 

Miles City and Roundup, — what visions of frontier 
life they conjured up ! And how little they fulfilled these 
visions ! The former used to be and still is the scene of 
great horse fairs and the center of horse-trading Mon- 
tana, a fact brought home to us by the manifold horse- 
shoe nails that punctured our tires in this district. But 
as we saw no chaparraled rough-riders swaggering in the 
streets of Round-up, so we saw no horses in Miles City. 
It may be that once or twice yearly these towns revert to 
old customs, and their streets glow with the color of 
former years, but otherwise they are more concerned with 
their future than their past, and are trying as fast as 
possible to wipe out all traits that distinguish them from 
every other thriving city. 

Of this very section we drove through, back in the 
eighties Theodore Roosevelt wrote, "In its present form 
stock-raising on the plains is doomed and can hardly out- 
last the century. The great free ranches with their bar- 
barous, picturesque and curiously fascinating surround- 
ings, mark a primitive stage of existence as surely as do 
the great tracts of primeval forests, and like the latter 
must pass away before the onward march of our people; 
and we who have felt the charm of the life, and have 
exulted in its abounding vigor and its bold, restless free- 
dom, will not only regret its passing for our own sakes, 
but must also feel real sorrow that those who come after 
us are not to see, as we have seen, what is perhaps the 
pleasantest, healthiest, and most exciting phase of 
American existence." 

We came into the town of Medora on the Little Mis- 
souri, after the hills had flattened out into the endless 
plains of North Dakota. On a cutbank dominating the 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 361 

river at its bend a great gloomy house frowns. Here the 
French Marquis de Mores once lived like a seigneur of 
the glorious Louis, in crude, patriarchal magnificence. 
Even in his lifetime he was a legend in this simple Da- 
kotan village. But a greater legend centres in a large 
signboard opposite which tells that Roosevelt once 
ranched near by, — a matter of pride to all Medorans. 
Of this town in the eighties he wrote, "Medora has more 
than its full share of shooting and stabbing affrays, horse 
stealing and cattle-lifting. But the time for such things 
is passing away." 

As we read the sign, a lanky Dakotan hovered near, 
and volunteered much information in a sing-song voice 
which seemed characteristic of the locality. "Right here 
at this bend," he said, "they're talking about putting up 
one of these here equesterlan statutes of Teddy, mounted 
on horseback." 

Being averse to stopping, we suggested that he ride to 
the village and tell us what he had to tell. 

"Yes'm," he continued swinging to the running board 
without ceasing to talk. "In this here town interesting 
things has happened. But as interesting as ever hap- 
pened is coming off tomorrow, and if you was a writer 
of books," — a hit in the dark on his part — "I could tell 
you something to write down. For there's some of the 
richest men in this town, prominent men with good busi- 
nesses," — his voice took on an edge of strong feeling and 
I sensed something personal in his excitement, — "who 
has been found out to be part of a gang that has been 
stealing cattle wholesale, and shipping them to K. C. 
There's a fat, fleshy, portly man that's said to have stole 
1200 head himself. And they've been getting rich on it 



362 WESTWARD HOBOES 

for years, and would 'a kept on years more only one of 
the gang, an outsider, got caught, and Is turning state's 
evidence. There'll be some excitement when they begin 
to make arrests. You'd better stay over, and see some 
doings aint been seen In a long time." 

But we could not stay, — the Drang nach Osten was 
too strong for us. And a half-finished story sometimes 
Is more alluring than one with the edges nicely bound. 
Yet I should like to have heard the reason for the note 
of personal grievance that shook the lanky stranger's 
voice when he spoke of the righteous vengeance about to 
fall on the cattle thieves. 

We were not tempted to linger In North Dakota. No 
shade, no variety, no charm, nothing but wheat, wheat, 
wheat; — ruined crops left to bake In the glaring sun. 
Great grain elevators, community-owned, made the only 
vertical lines in the landscape. The rest was flat, and 
to us stale and unprofitable; colorless save for the faintly 
rainbow-tinted Bad Lands. What little Individuality 
the state had was crude and dreary, reeking of Town- 
leyism. With its wheat, its per capita wealth, and its 
beyond-the-mlnute legislation I have been told it Is one 
of the most prosperous states of the Union. It may be. 
I know some people like South Dakota, — virtuous, pros- 
perous, solid, yet with no shade trees, no bosky nooks, no 
charm. I leave their presence as quickly as we left Da- 
kota to the companionship of its galvanized iron ele- 
vators. We sympathized with an old man who chatted 
with us when one of our frequent punctures halted us in 
a forsaken little hamlet. In fact, it was hardly a hamlet; 
it was more like a hamlet with the hamlet left out. We 
commented on the drought. 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 363 

"I suppose you're used to it?" 

"Me? I guess not! I don't belong here. Where I 
come from they've got a perfect climate all year round." 

"California?" we asked wearily. 

"Tacoma." 

"But I've heard it's always raining in Tacoma." 

"So it does. Rains every day of the year. There's a 
climate for you. Hope I get back to it some day, but," 
he shook his head sadly, "I don't know." 

"Can't you sell out?" 

"Don't own anything. Just here on a visit. Came 
here expecting to stay a couple a weeks, and been here 
three years and nine months." 

"That almost sounds as if you like the place." 

"Naw. Came on to bury my mother-in-law, and what 
do you know!" His sense of grievance mounted to in- 
dignation. "She ain't died yet!" 

As we talked to the aged man whose faith in human 
nature had been so bitterly shattered by this perfidy in a 
near relative, he pointed to the lad who was mending 
our tire. 

"That fellow went through the war from start to 
finish," he said. "Got decorated three times." 

We looked at the desolate fields and the one forlorn 
main street, and wondered how a hero who had known 
the tenseness of war and the civilized beauty of France 
could endure to return to the bleak stupidity of the town. 

"Where were you stationed in France?" we asked him. 

"Well, I was everywhere, — in the Argonne, at Belleau 
Woods and Chattoo Thierry, and all them places." 

"It must have been exciting." 

"Well, it was pretty hot." 



364 WESTWARD HOBOES 

"Do tell us more about it." 

"Well it was pretty hot, — pretty hot." 

"Did you like France?" 

"France?" His eyes kindled as they swept the bare 
prairie, — "Believe me, I was glad to get back where 
there's something doing. Mud, — that's what France was, 
— nothin' but mud!" 

The tire he repaired gave out before evening, but we 
forgave him. Not every puncture can be patched by a 
hero of Belleau Wood. Besides, it was our twelfth that 
week, and one more or less had become a matter of 
indifference. 

At Bismarck mine host met us at the sidewalk with, 
i "Where's the Mister?" 

"There is no Mister," answered Toby, to whom that 
\ question was a red rag. "We are alone." 

What he said next is memorable only because we were 
soon to hear it for the last time, and its refrain already 
had a pensive note of reminiscence. But that we dared 
go so far from home Misterless raised his opinion of us 
to dizzy heights, and after personally escorting us to the 
garage, where he made a eulogistic speech in which we 
figured as intimate friends for whom any service ren- 
dered would be a personal favor to him, he gave us the 
best room his house afforded. Though cozy it was not 
the best house in town. We had long avoided exclusive 
hotels. Hardened by ten thousand miles of vagabond- 
age, we had become completely indifferent to appear- 
ances, and wore our grimy khaki and dusty boots with 
the greatest disregard of the opinion of others cither had 
ever attained. While Toby packed each morning, it was 
my duty to attend to the car, and to this fact I could boast 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 365 

the trimmer appearance of the two. When the tank was 
filled, I usually sprayed what gasolene remained in the 
hose over my clothes where they looked worst, but Toby 
was so far sunk in lassitude that she scorned such primp- 
ing. Her suit was a collection of souvenirs of delightful 
hours. A smudge on the left knee recalled where she 
rested her tin plate in the Canyon de Chelley. Down the 
front a stain showed where Hostein Chee had upset a 
cup of coffee. Her elbows were coated with a paste of 
grease and dirt from innumerable tires, and minor spots 
checkerboarded her from chin to knee. As a precaution, 
when we had to stay at a first class hotel, I usually left 
Toby outside while I registered. Though the clerk never 
looked favorably upon me, he would give me a room, 
usually on the fourteenth floor if they went that high. 
Then, before he could see Toby I would smuggle her 
hurriedly across to the elevator. Sometimes she refused 
to be hurried, but examined postcards and magazines on 
the way, indifferent to the amazed, immaculate eyes 
turned toward us. 

"I always maintain," she contended when I remon- 
strated with her, "that a person is well dressed if all her 
clothes are of the same sort, no matter what sort they 
are." 

"In that case," I said, "you are undoubtedly well- 
dressed." 

Secure in this consciousness, Toby sat down in the 
lobby of our Bismarck hotel with two dozen postcards 
which she proceeded to address to her sisters and her 
cousins and her aunts. As she warmed to her work, she 
gradually spread out until the cards covered the desk. A 
fellow lodger watched her, and finally rose and stood 



366 WESTWARD HOBOES 

beside her, curiosity gleaming from his eyes and reflecting 
in his gold teeth which glittered as he spoke. 

"Say! If you're going east" — he thrust a handful of 
business cards in her hands as he spoke — "maybe you'd 
just as lief distribute some of my cards with your own, 
as you go along." 

Something I recognized as Cantabrigian, but he did 
not, in Toby's expression made him add propitiatingly, 
"Of course I'd expect to do the same for you. What's 
your line, — postcards?" 

When what remained of him had thawed out suf- 
ficiently to fade away I ventured to look at his cards. 
They read, "Portable Plumbing and Bath Fixings." 

"According to your theory," I consoled Toby, "in pre- 
senting a convincing and consistent appearance as a lady 
drummer for postcards and plumbing, you are well 
dressed. Therefore the poor man was only paying you a 
compliment " 

"He was fresh," said Toby. "Just fresh." 

Only as we were leaving Dakota did we see a touch 
of homeliness, — in Fargo, a green, cozy place, full of 
neat, comfortable homes. As we crossed the state line 
here into Minnesota, instantly a change appeared. The 
air became moist and unlrrltatlng. Meadows and leafy 
forests, such as we have in New England, dozens of 
black, quiet lakes and little, sparkling streams, long wheat 
fields shaded by boundary rows of oaks, with six-horse 
teams harvesting grain flashed by us. Flock upon flock 
of red-winged and jet black blackbirds and wild ducks 
flashed from the reedy pools, whirring into the woods. 
We would have liked leisure to camp on the shores of 
some secluded pond until the spirit moved us on. 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 367 

We saw something more In Minnesota than her black- 
birds and lakes and pretty woods and fields, her maca- 
dam roads and beautiful twin cities, frowning at each 
other from the high banks of the Mississippi. We saw 
the West fade, and give place to the East. The easy- 
going, slap-dash, restless, generous, tolerant, gossipy, 
plastic, helpful, jealous West was departing, not to re- 
appear even sporadically. In its place we began to en- 
counter caution, neatness, method, the feeling for prop- 
erty and the fear of strangers, that we were brought up 
with. We were clicking back into the groove of prece- 
dent and established order, no stronger, if as strong, on 
the Eastern seaboard than here. We could almost put 
our finger on the very town along the Red Trail where 
we noticed the transition. It was not Miles City nor 
Glendive, — Montana is still entirely western; it was not 
Bismarck nor the bleak little town of Casselton, west of 
Fargo. Probably it was Fargo that we should have 
marked for the pivotal town. At least the slight struggle 
a few villages beyond made to suggest the old, beloved 
West was soon quenched by the encroaching East. Some 
call the West Seattle, others Syracuse, N. Y., but I be- 
lieve that Fargo very nearly marks the division. Graz- 
ing, sheep and cattle-raising increasingly lost place to the 
industries, city-building and manufactures, from this point 
eastward until they disappeared altogether. 

Our last experience with what for lack of a neater 
phrase I have called western chivalry, occurred at a 
charming little town named St. Cloud, near Minneapolis. 
Our fourteenth and last puncture was changed and 
mended for us at an up-to-the-second garage. When we 



368 WESTWARD HOBOES 

inquired what we owed we received a smile and the 
answer, "No charge for ladies." 
"But you worked half an hour." 
"Glad to do it. Come again when you have a punc- 
ture, and we'll charge you the same." 
3 From this point till we reached home, we met with 
} respectful treatment, but no suggestion that we belonged 
to a sex to whom special privileges must be accorded. 
That is what old-fashioned people used to say would 
happen when women had the vote. Yet we were leaving 
the pioneer suffrage states, and entering the anti's last 
\ stand. 

Wisconsin surely is not the West, though we found it 
a fruitful, welcoming state anyone would be glad to live 
in. We got an impression of rolling fields, in brilliant 
patchwork of varying grains, like a glorified bedquilt 
spread under the sun; elms and summer haze, and a 
tangle of shade by the road; lazy, prosperous farm- 
steads, fat Dutch cattle, silver-green tobacco crops. The 
predominant impression was of gold and blue, — stacked 
wheat against the sky. Madison, into which we rolled 
one Sunday morning, presents an unhurried and stately 
best to the tourist, who sees it unprejudiced by miles of 
slatternly outskirts. He comes quickly to the Capitol, 
which is as it should be, the logical center of the town. 
Flanked by dignified University buildings set in green 
gardens, the State House stands in grounds planned to 
set off its perfect proportions. Without making it an 
object, we had seen many state Capitols, — ^Arizona's, 
New Mexico's, Utah's, Montana's, North Dakota's, 
Minnesota's — and some were imposing and some merely 
distressing. All, whatever their shortcomings, had a 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 369 

dome, as if it were a requirement of the Federal Consti- 
tution that whether it has honesty, dignity, grace or pro- 
portion, a state building must have a dome. In poor 
Boston, the dome has nearly disappeared under an attack 
of elephantiasis affecting the main body, as if someone 
had given the State House an overdose of yeast and set 
it in a warm place after forgetting to put any "risings" 
in the dome. Santa Fe's is modest and pretty enough. 
Salt Lake's is impressive and cold and very fine, but 
leaves one with no more of a taste for Capitols than 
before seeing it. Helena's is atrocious, — a bombastic 
dome overtopping a puny body, and Arizona's is so like 
all the others I cannot recall it in any respect. But Wis- 
consin's has charm and beauty, dignity and proportion, 
— all that an architect strives and usually fails to get in 
one building. Most capitols leave one unimpressed, but 
this is so satisfying and inspiring one wonders how its 
corridors can send forth such unpromising statesmen. 

Our homeward journey seemed nearly ended before we 
reached Chicago. Driving over these perfectly kept 
roads of the middle west furnished no new experience. 
We decided to shorten the remaining interval still further 
by taking the Detroit boat to Buffalo. When we sud- 
denly made this decision we had less than two days to 
make the 340 miles, — time enough, except for the state 
of our tires, which resembled that mid-Victorian neu- 
rasthenic Sweet Alice Ben Bolt. They collapsed if you 
gave them a smile, and blew out at fear of a frown. 
No longer in the belt of chivalry, we toiled over obstre- 
perous rims, warped and bent from drought and flood, 
while able bodied men sailed by, and the only speech we 
had from them was an occasional jeering, "Hello, girls I" 



370 WESTWARD HOBOES 

Thus we knew we were fast returning to civilization. As 
we made out our bill of lading at Detroit we heard for 
the last time, "Well, you are a long ways from home." 
After that we felt we had already completed our period 
of vagabondage. 

But the fates were not to let us finish tamely. The last 
act of our drama began when our rear tire gave way, and 
lost us two hours while we waited for repairs, just out 
of Chicago. The eastern entrance to Chicago, with its 
unsightly, factory-pocked marshes is cheerless enough 
even under blue skies. But a soggy downpour only 
made us shiver and hurry on. Chicago was well enough, 
as cities go, but the middle west did not hold us, having 
neither the courtesy of the South, the wide beauty of the 
West nor the self-respecting antiquity of the East. Yet 
here and there in the open country of Illinois, with its 
broad golden wheat fields, tall elms, and its homelike 
blue haze softening distant woods, a bit of English 
Warwickshire peeped out at us. 

The drizzle soon settled into a steady downpour. All 
day we slushed over glistening macadam and through the 
heavy mud of section roads. Night fell early under the 
gloom of the rain while we were still many miles from 
the end of our day's stint. We decided to go as long as 
we could, or we never should reach Detroit in time. 
Camping was out of the question, — Illinois was too 
civilized for it to be safe procedure. So in deference to 
the solemn midwestern habit of laying out their country 
like a checkerboard, we paced so many miles east, so 
many miles south. 

We left tracks in three states that day, the Yellow- 
stone Trail dipping unexpectedly into Indiana, seen too 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 371 

late and briefly to leave any impression but of an ex- 
cellent cafeteria at South Bend. Some time after dark, 
our sense of direction took a nose dive, and was perma- 
nently injured. At half-past eight we reckoned the miles, 
and knew there was to be no rest for the weary if we 
were to reach Detroit next day. Hopelessly lost by now, 
confused by many arguments, backings and turnings, we 
knocked, somewhere in Indiana, at a Hoosier door, and 
an old man in his stocking feet came out, calling lovingly, 
"That you, dear?" We almost wished we were his 
dear, and might rest in the yellow glow of his parlor 
instead of pushing on in the dark. We were several 
miles off our bearings in both directions it seemed. He 
told us off nine turns to the east and four to the north 
to straighten us out, and we went on into the night and 
the storm. We had gone out into the night and storm so 
often that no heroine of melodrama could tell us any- 
thing about either. But being by this time completely 
disorientated, instead of traveling nine east and four 
north, as they say in the easy vernacular of the midwest, 
we went instead nine west and four south, and came out 
at a lonely crossroads, the kind at which a murderer 
might appropriately be buried. Our arithmetic was quite 
unequal to adding and subtracting our mistakes. Seeing 
a house with one light burning, I reached its door to 
ask directions. There, unashamed, through the lighted 
window, a lady sat in her nightdress, braiding her hair. 
I backed away, not wishing to embarrass her. It was 
not as if I were one of the neighbors, whom she seemed 
not to mind. A dismal quarter of a mile away, another 
light gleamed. I walked to it. An old woman cautiously 
put her head out of the door. She too was in an honest 



372 WESTWARD HOBOES 

flannel nightie, and I concluded that the mid-west wears 
its nightgear unabashed. My sudden appearance, and 
especially the fact of my inquiring for a great city like 
Detroit, was not reassuring to her. She asked suspi- 
ciously if I were alone and at my answer, exclaimed, 
"Aint you afraid?" 

Her question gave me genuine amazement. I had 
forgotten that in the eastern section of our country peo- 
ple are afraid of each other, and I had grown so far 
away from it that I laughed and said, "Not in the least." 
She seemed to think this marvelous. A motherly old 
soul, her sympathy struggled hard with her fear that I 
was bent on forcing a violent entrance into her house, but 
finally the baser suspicions won and she shut the door 
firmly on me until she could confer with "Pa." He, being 
bolder, came openly to the porch in his, — was it pajamas 
or nightshirt? — I can hardly say, because not to embar- 
rass him I only looked past his snowy beard and into his 
nice blue eyes. He directed us. We were to go seven 
north and thirteen west. 

For half an hour the sleepy Toby and I wrestled with 
the problem of where we now were, how far from our 
starting point, from our destination, from our last check- 
ing up, — till we feared for our reason. Like a ballad 
refrain, we went seven miles south and thirteen west, 
—but instead of a town met a pine forest. So, a few 
miles more or less meaning nothing to us, we threw in 
several to the north and a couple east, with the same 
unpromising result. At the rate we were going, I ex- 
pected to reach either the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific 
Ocean by morning. 

Once we heard the whirr of a mighty engine over our 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 373 

heads, — some belated airman, lost like ourselves doubt- 
less in the rain above us. If anything could have made 
us feel lonelier than we had, it would have been this 
evidence of an unseen neighbor who shared the night 
and the storm with us. 

We came to another house. I stopped the car. 
Neither of us moved. "I went last time," I said point- 
edly. 

"Huh-yah-yah," protested Toby, but I did not yield, 
because I had fallen asleep. She wearily tottered out to 
the house, and brought back a Hoosier farmer with her, 
who fastened his suspenders as he came. 

"You're some out of your way," he said, unnecessarily, 
"but five east and eight south you'll find a small hotel 
where you can spend the night." 

"Is it all right?" I asked dubiously. 

"Well," he considered, "being a neighbor, I don't like 
to say. You might like it better at Orland, seven miles 
further." 

We decided on Orland and slushed along in mud so 
thick we could hardly hold the wheel stiff. Suddenly 
we heard an ominous sound, — a steady thump, thump, 
thump. I got out in the downpour and looked at the tires. 
They were hard. I peered at the engine. It purred with 
a mighty purr. So I climbed in again, and we started 
hopefully; again came the heavy thumping, a sound fit 
to rack a car into bits. However, as the engine still func- 
tioned we decided to go as long as we could, though the 
noise struck terror to our hearts. We were too weary 
and wet to wallow in the mud and dark, investigating 
engine troubles. I drove cautiously, and after what 
seemed hours we reached Orland. The thumping now 



374 WESTWARD HOBOES 

had become violent, but we didn't care. A roof and a 
bed were practically within our grasp. 

It was a neat little town with white buildings and 
shady trees. Had we been motoring through on a sunny 
afternoon we might have said, "What a sweet place!" 
But we were too tired for aesthetic appreciation. Across 
the street was a large, comfortable white hotel, with 
broad hospitable porch. We hastened to rap on the door. 

After a quarter of an hour, we ceased to hasten, but 
we continued to knock intermittently. Then Toby blew 
the horn as viciously as she knew how. The silent town 
seemed to recoil from our rude noise and gather the bed 
quilts closer about it. But no response came from the 
hotel. From the second floor came sounds of slumbering. 
Becoming expert we counted three people asleep. The 
three snores dwindled to two snores and a cough, after 
our experiment with the horn, and later diminished to a 
cough and two voices, speaking in whispers. We wanted 
to call out that we knew they were awake, and why didn't 
they come down and let us in, but we knew they had no 
intention of stirring. We were in a state of enraged 
helplessness. We rapped until it was quite apparent the 
hotel was resolved not to establish a dangerous precedent 
by admitting strangers after midnight. Then we gave up. 
But Orland owed us a bed and if we could we were going 
to exact it. We felt as if it were a duel between the town 
and ourselves. 

Our last knock brought a head from a little room over 
the store next door, and a woman's voice called, "Who 
is it?" 

"Two ladies from Boston," we answered, guilefully 
using the magic words which in happier climes had 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 375 

brought cheerful repartee and prompt sustenance. We 
did not get the expected reaction, but her tone was appre- 
hensive, if kind, when she asked, "What do you want?" 

We told her, though she might have guessed. 

"Knock again," she said. "There's someone there. 
They ought to hear you." 

"They hear us all right," we said, loud enough for 
the cough and two voices not to miss, "but they won't let 
us in. Do you know of any place where we can go?" 

"I'd take you in here," said the voice, — the only sign 
of hospitality we had from Orland that night, — "but my 
husband and I have one room, and the children the 
other." 

Even standing on an alien sidewalk at two-thirty A. M. 
in the rain we felt less forlorn now that we had someone 
to talk to. A male rumble made a quartette of our trio, 
which after a discussion, she reported. 

"//^ says you might try Uncle Ollie's." Her voice 
implied she thought the suggestion barren. 

I dared not let her see we didn't know Uncle Ollie for 
fear it might prejudice this suspicious hamlet against us. 
So I queried cautiously, "Now, just where does he live?" 
as if it had only slipped my mind for the moment. 

"Go down the road a piece and turn west, — it's the 
second house. But I dunno whether you'll be able to 
wake him. He's kinder deaf." 

We thanked her, and said goodnight and she wished 
us good luck. We bumped the damaged old lady down 
the main street, her thumpings making such a racket that 
we expected the constable to arrest us any moment for 
disturbing the peace. We had, however, no intention of 
trying Uncle Ollie's. 



376 WESTWARD HOBOES 

A half mile further, within a pretty white cottage set 
shyly from the road, we saw a light burning. This was 
so unusual for Orland that we invaded the premises with 
new hope. Toby being again comatose, I waded wearily 
to the door and knocked. A frightened girl's voice an- 
swered, and its owner appeared at the door. I shall 
always think of Indiana and Michigan as a succession of 
old and young standing on doorsteps in their nightgowns. 

"Who is it?" called a voice from an inner room. 

"Two women want a place to spend the night, gran'- 
maw," answered the girl. 

"Well, don't you let 'em in here," answered gran'maw. 

"No, I don't know of any place," the girl translated 
gran'maw to us, shutting the door. 

"Of all churlish towns !" we said, left on the doorstep. 
But it was not a just criticism. We had simply crossed 
the line where west is east, where a stranger is perforce 
a suspicious character. Back in New England would we 
have let in two strange women after midnight? Their 
asking to come in would have been proof presumptive 
they were either criminal or crazy. 

Our duel lost we drew up the old lady in a gutter under 
some dripping elms, and lay down to a belated sleep 
among the baggage, — Toby in one seat, I in another. 
In a twinkling we sat up, refreshed, to broad daylight 
and a shining morning sky. Our first thought was to 
search for the car's internal injuries, fearing greatly they 
might prevent us going further. There were none. Two 
tumors the size of a large potato on our front tire re- 
vealed the cause of the noise. The marvel was that the 
tire had not collapsed as a finishing touch to last night's 
dismal story. Luck, in its peculiar way, was again with us. 



HOMEWARD HOBOES 377 

While we changed to our last spare tire, Toby straight- 
ened up for a moment, and suddenly broke into a bitter, 
sardonic laugh. "Will you look at that!" she said, 
pointing overhead. 

Directly above our patient car a large, brightly painted 
sign flapped energetically in the clearing breeze. It 
read, in letters a yard high, "Welcome to Orland!" 



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